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' 


FORCE  AND  MATTER 

v v — 

OR 

PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  NATURAL  ORDER 
OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 

WITH  A SYSTEM  OF  MORALITY  BASED  THEREON. 
A POPULAR  EXPOSITION 


Prof.  LUDWIG  BUCHNER,  M.  D., 

FORMERLY  MEDICAL  LECTURER  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  TUBINGEN. 


Translated  from  the  Fifteenth  German  Edition,  enlarged  and  revised  by 
the  Author. 

REPRINTED  FROM  THE  FOURTH  ENGLISH  EDITION. 


NEW  YORK: 

PETER  ECKLER  PUBLISHING  CO. 

1920 


Contents 


31 


•'Preface  to  the  First  Edition v 

Treface  to  the  Fifteenth  Edition ix 

vForce  and  Matter i 

Immortality  of  Matter  14 

Immortality  of  Force 21 

Infinity  of  Matter  31 

Value  of  Matter  46 

Motion  58 

Form  67 

Immutability  of  Natural  Laws 74 

Universality  of  Natural  Laws  .....  89 

’/The  Heavens  . 104 

Periods  of  the  Creation  of  the  Earth  ....  iry 

Original  Generation  129 

Secular  Generation  145 

The  Fitness  of  Things  in  Nature  (Teleology.)  . . 172 

Man  197 

Brain  and  Mind 209 

Thought  241 

Consciousness  247 

Seat  of  the  Soul  255 

Innate  Ideas  . 275 

The  Idea  of  God  301 

Personal  Continuance 316 

Vital  Force  337 

The  Soul  of  Brutes  351 

Free  Will  . . . ' . . , . . . 366 

v/frlorality  379 

Concluding  Observation  391 

Appendix  397 


445890 


To  the  dialectician  the  world  is  an  idea,  to  the  bel  esprit  a picture,  to  the  en- 
thusiast a dream,  to  the  scientist  alone  it  is  a truth  — Orgks. 

The  criterion  of  a true  philosopher  is  that  he  is  not  a professor  of  philosophy. 
The  plainest  truths  are  those  precisely  upon  which  man  hits  last  of  all. — Lud- 
wig Feuerbach. 

Experience  and  observation  must  be  our  sole  guides ; we  meet  with  them  in  the 
case  of  physicians  who  have  been  philosophers,  but  not  in  the  case  of  philoso- 
phers who  have  not  been  physicians.— Lamettrib. 

We  must  have  facts  and  a positive  philosophy,  based  upon  nature  and  reason.— 
H.  Tuttle. 

And  if  the  inscription  on  the  ancient  pyramid  of  Sal's  says,  “ I am  all  that  is,  that 
was,  and  that  will  be  ; no  mortal  man  has  yet  raised  my  veil,"  it  might  be  re- 
plied thereto  : “ Modern  science  has  removed  the  veil  and  has  discovered  that 
Force  and  Matter  were,  are,  and  will  be. — F.  J.  Pisko. 

The  number  of  errors  is  unlimited,  truth  alone  is  but  one.— Ph.  Sfiller. 


It  nettles  men  to  find  that  truth  should  be  so  simple. — Goethb. 


Preface  to  the  First  Edition.* 


Now  what  I want  is  — facts. — Boz. 

THE  following  pages  do  not  claim  to  form  a system, 
or  an  aggregate  exhaustive  treatise.  They  are  scat- 
tered thoughts  and  ideas,  collated  from  the  almost 
boundless  province  of  the  empirical  study  of  natural 
philosophy,  yet  essentially  connected  with,  and  mutually 
completing,  each  other.  A merciful  judgment  at  the  hands 
of  my  confreres  is  claimed  for  them  on  account  of  the  dif- 
ficulty to  which  an  individual  is  necessarily  subject  in  grap- 
pling with  the  innumerable  mass  of  materials  spread  over 
the  vast  fields  of  natural  science.  If  these  pages  may  ven- 
ture to  claim  any  merit  or  characteristic,  it  is  that  of 
representing  a determination  not  to  shrink  with  dismal 
horror  from  the  simple  and  unavoidable  consequences  of  an 
unprejudiced  contemplation  of  nature  from  the  standpoint 
of  empirical  philosophy,  but  to  admit  of  the  truth  regard- 
less of  what  may  follow.  We  cannot  make  things  different 
from  what  they  are , and  nothing  seems  to  us  more  pre- 
posterous than  the  attempts  of  some  distinguished  naturalists 
at  introducing  orthodoxy  into  natural  science.  We  do  not 
pretend  to  bring  forward  anything  absolutely  new  or  any- 
thing that  has  never  been  heard  of  before.  Similar 
views  and  views  cognate  to  ours  have  been  taught  in  all 
ages,  and  some  of  them  were  laid  down  by  the  oldest  Greek 
and  Indian  philosophers  ; but  their  groundwork,  which  is 

* Written  at  Tubingen  in  the  year  1855. 


VI 


PREFACE. 


necessarily  empirical,  could  only  be  supplied  by  the  pro- 
gress of  natural  science  in  the  present  century.  It  is 
therefore  obvious  that  these  views,  in  their  present  clear- 
ness and  consistency,  are  essentially  a trophy  of  modern 
times  and  closely  connected  with  the  new  and  gigantic 
achievements  of  empirical  science.  Indeed,  scholastic 
philosophy,  ever  riding  the  high,  though  from  day  to  day 
more  and  more  emaciated  horse,  lays  the  flattering  unction 
to  its  soul  that  these  views  have  long  been  disposed  of,  and 
would  fain  consign  them  to  the  limbo  of  oblivion,  with 
which  object  it  has  labelled  them  “ Materialism,”  “Sen- 
sationalism,” “ Determinism,”  and  so  on  ; nay,  the 
gentlemen  of  that  school  go  so  far,  in  their  assumed 
supercilious  superiority,  as  to  talk  of  having  given  them 
“ the  historical  quietus.”  But  they  themselves  are  going 
down  day  by  day  in  the  public  estimation,  and  losing 
ground  in  their  speculative  hollowness  before  the  rapid 
rise  of  the  empirical  sciences,  which  are  making  it  daily 
more  evident  that  both  the  macrocosmic  and  microcosmic 
worlds  obey  at  every  stage  of  their  genesis,  existence  and 
subsidence,  the  mechanical  laws  which  lie  in  the  very  nature 
of  things.  Starting  from  the  recognition  of  the  indis- 
soluble relation  that  exists  between  force  and  matter  as  an 
indestructible  basis,  the  view  of  nature  resting  upon  em- 
pirical philosophy  must  result  in  definitely  relegating  every 
form  of  supernaturalism  or  idealism  from  what  may  be 
called  the  hermeneutics  of  natural  facts,  and  in  looking  upon 
these  facts  as  wholly  independent  of  the  influence  of  any 
external  power  dissociated  from  matter.  There  seems  to 
us  to  be  no  doubt  about  the  ultimate  victory  of  this  real- 
istic philosophy  over  its  antagonists.  The  strength  of  its 
proofs  lies  in  facts , and  not  in  untelligible  and  meaningless 
phrases.  For  in  the  long  run  there  is  no  contending  against 
facts;  it  is  useless  to  “ kick  against  the  pricks.”  It  need 
scarcely  be  said  that  our  exposition  has  no  connection  with 
the  idle  fancies  of  the  older  school  of  natural  philosophy. 
These  curious  attempts  at  constructing  nature  by  thought 


PREFACE. 


VII 


instead  of  by  observation,  have  so  completely  failed  and 
have  brought  their  advocates  into  such  public  discredit, 
that  the  very  name  of  ‘ ‘ philosopher  of  nature  ’ ’ is  all  but 
generally  used  at  this  day  as  the  reverse  of  a flattering 
epithet.  It  is  obvious  that  this  reproach  can  only  be 
levelled  at  a certain  tendency  or  school,  and  not  at  natural 
philosophy  in  itself ; and  there  is  now  an  almost  general 
consensus  of  opinions  that  natural  science  must  be  the  basis 
of  every  philosophy  that  lays  claim  to  exactitude.  “ Nature 
and  experience  ’ ’ is  the  watchword  of  the  age.  The  failure 
of  previous  attempts  of  natural  philosophers  serves  as  the 
clearest  proof  of  the  fact  that  the  universe  is  not  the  reali- 
zation of  a uniform  creative  thought,  but  a complex  of 
things  and  facts,  which  we  must  take  for  what  it  is,  and  not 
for  what  we  may  be  pleased  to  fancy  it.  “We  must  ac- 
cept things  as  they  really  are,’’  says  Virchow,  “ not  as  we 
choose  to  imagine  them.”  We  shall  seek  to  present  our 
views  in  a generally  intelligible  form  and  to  base  them  on 
known  or  easily  comprehensible  facts,  and  in  doing  so 
shall  avoid  all  those  philosophical  technicalities  the  use  or 
rather  abuse  of  which  has  justly  brought  all  theoretical, 
and  especially  German,  philosophy  into  discredit  in  the 
eyes  both  of  the  learned  and  unlearned.  It  is  part  of  the 
very  nature  of  philosophy  to  be  mtellectually  the  joint 
property  of  all.  Philosophical  disquisitions  which  cannot 
be  understood  by  every  educated  man,  are  not,  in  our 
opinion,  worth  the  printer’s  ink  that  is  spent  on  them. 
What  is  thought  clearly,  can  be  expressed  clearly  and 
without  circumlocution.*  The  philosophical  mist  which 
enshrouds  the  writings  of  learned  men,  seems  rather  in- 
tended to  hide  than  to  reveal  thoughts.  The  days  of 
learned  tail-talk,  of  philosophical  charlatanism,  and  of 
“ intellectual  legerdemain,  ” as  Cotta  strikingly  expresses 

•“Men  who  belong  neither  to  the  highest  nor  to  the  lowest  intellectual 
spheres,”  admirably  says  the  famous  English  physicist  Tyndall,  ‘‘often  infer 
want  of  depth  from  perfect  clearness.  They  find  comfort  and  support  in  ab- 
stract and  learned  phraseology.” 


Vi  1 1 


preface. 


it,  are  over  by  this  time,  or  ought  to  be.  May  our 
German  philosophy  come  to  recognize  that  words  are  not 
deeds,  and  that,  those  who  wish  to  be  understood  ought 
to  speak  an  intelligible  language. 

We  shall  meet  with  no  lack  of  opponents,  and  of  the 
bitterest,  too.  But  we  shall  take  no  notice  of  any  but 
those  who  meet  us  on  the  ground  of  facts  and  of  em- 
piricism. Let  the  speculative  gentry  go  on  fighting  one 
another  from  standpoints  that  are  their  own  creation, 
but  let  them  not  run  away  with  the  strange  notion  that 
they  possess  the  monopoly  of  philosophic  truth.  “Spec- 
ulation,” says  Ludwig  Feuerbach,  “is  philosophy  in- 
toxicated. When  philosophy  shall  have  become  sober 
again,  it  will  be  to  the  mind  what  pure  spring-water 
is  to  the  body.” 


Preface  to  the  Fifteenth  Edition. 


Comprehensive  works,  if  not  simply  collated  from  the  works  of  others,  bnt 
having  grown  out  of  independent  efforts,  are  at  this  day,  as  they  were  hereto- 
fore, made  to  suffer  from  the  fact  that  the  shadow  they  necessarily  cast  is  seen 
more  clearly  than  their  bright  side.  They  labor  under  this  additional  draw- 
back that,  in  order  to  accomplish  their  ends,  they  have  to  contend  against 
perennial  errors  and  prejudices  which  are  not  only  firmly  rooted  in  the  minds 
of  men,  but  command  perfect  strongholds  in  the  shape  of  textbooks  and  Uni- 
versity chairs.  How  readily  soever  the  younger  generation  may  at  any  time 
have  fallen  in  with  the  new  teachings,  the  old  school  would  still  remain  in 
existence  by  the  side  of  the  new  and  would  not  give  way,  until  all  its  repre- 
sentatives and  advocates  had  gone  the  way  of  the  flesh. — Radenhausen. 

EIGHT  and  twenty  years  have  passed  away  since  the 
first  edition  of  this  book  appeared.  Many  things 
have  changed  since  then,  both  in  the  intellectual  and 
the  material  worlds.  A great  political  exhaustion  has  come  in 
the  wake  of  a great  political  impetus  ; a general  reaction  of 
relaxation,  recalcitrance  and  retrogression  has  followed  a 
period  of  intellectual  and  material  progression.  This  has 
produced  some  deletenous  influence  on  the  intellectual  cur- 
rent originally  induced  by  this  book,  and  it  seems  as 
though  the  distance  that  separates  us  from  the  goal  were 
now  greater  than  ever.  But  who  can  tell  how  near  the 
rising  wave  may  be  at  hand,  which  shall  once  more  carry 
us  all  onward  ? The  ocean  of  mankind  moves  according 
to  the  same  laws  as  the  sea  that  covers  the  greater  part  of 
the  earth’s  surface.  It  is  in  the  innermost  nature  of  both 
to  ebb  and  to  flow. 

In  science  also  so  many  things  have  changed  during 
these  eight  and  twenty  years,  that  it  appeared  imperative 
to  re-write  this  book  which  has  had  so  many  readers,  and 
has  passed  through  seventeen  German  and  twenty-two 
foreign  editions.  The  author  has  spared  no  labor  in 
bringing  this  last  edition,  as  far  as  it  is  possible,  up  to  the 


X 


PREFACE. 


scientific  mark  of  the  present  age,  and  inserting  new 
chapters  with  a view  to  connect  the  various  orders  of  ideas 
represented  in  the  individual  sections  with  one  another. 
When  the  book  was  first  written,  the  empirical  materials 
were  not  sufficient  to  form  between  them  a body  with 
clearly  marked  outlines,  and  the  author  was  therefore 
under  the  necessity  of  confining  himself  to  publishing  them 
under  the  unassuming  title  of  Empirical  Studies  on  Natural 
Philosophy.  Since  then,  the  progress  of  science  has  been 
such  that  these  empirical  materials  have  so  accumulated  as 
to  make  it  appear  permissible  to  venture  upon  a bolder 
course,  and  endeavor  to  build  up  a more  closely  connected 
and  more  coherent  fabric  as  a system  of  the  natural  order 
of  the  universe  and  as  a more  homogeneous  theory  of  the 
world.  Hence  the  change  of  the  title  of  Studies  into  the 
more  assuming  and  more  promising  epigraph  of  Principles 
of  the  Natural  Order  of  the  Universe.  No  doubt,  the  op- 
ponents will  have  a great  many  faults  to  find  with  this  title  ; 
they  will  urge  that  the  empirical  materials  are  not  nearly 
sufficient  for  such  an  object,  and  that  the  gaps  still  existing 
in  our  knowledge  are  far  too  great  and  too  numerous  to  be 
bridged  over  in  such  a manner  by  theoretical  constructions. 
In  their  eyes,  the  whole  mass  of  facts  which  militate  in 
favor  of  a natural  order  of  the  universe,  is  of  no  value  what- 
ever, because  in  some,  nay  in  many,  points  absolute  or 
relative  obscurity  still  prevails.  In  this,  as  Du  Prel  very 
pointedly  remarks,  they  resemble  a chess-player  whose 
king  has  only  a few  pawns  left  to  cover  him,  but  who 
will  not  own  himself  beaten  despite  the  superiority  of  the 
men  arrayed  against  him.  But  in  the  eyes  of  all  truly 
competent  men  the  game  has  long  been  lost,  and  the 
question  whether  the  universe,  as  we  see  it,  is  the  result  of 
regularly  working  forces,  having  a causal  connection  with 
each  other  and  therefore  capable  of  being  understood  by 
human  reason,  or  whether  it  is  the  work  of  an  automatic, 
incomprehensible  being  that  admits  of  no  recognition  by 
the  reason  of  man,  has  long  since  been  decided  in  favor 


PREFACE. 


XI 

of  the  former  alternative.  Every  item  of  human  knowl- 
edge, every  page  of  practical  experience,  every  conquest 
of  science,  gives  but  this  one  answer  and  makes  the  old 
theistic  theory  of  the  universe,  which  originated  in  the  days 
when  mankind  was  still  in  its  first  childhood,  appear  as  a 
mere  fable,  engendered  by  the  reverie  of  past  ages.  There- 
fore, the  author  cannot  in  fairness  be  taxed  with  pre- 
sumption, if  he  considers  himself  justified,  after  twenty-eight 
years  of  experiment  and  evolution,  in  raising  his  modest 
Studies  to  the  rank  of  a system  of  the  natural  order  of  the 
Universe,  based  upon  scientific  principles.  Nor  will  it  be 
deemed  unwarrantable  arrogance  or  self-laudation  on  his 
part  if  he  ventures  to  point  out  that  the  advances  and  con- 
quests made  by  science  in  the  course  of  these  twenty-eight 
years  have  in  no  one  point  controverted  the  theories  put 
forward  in  the  first  edition,  but  have,  on  the  contrary, 
confirmed  them  in  various  directions  and  in  the  most 
astonishing  manner.  This  has  especially  been  done  in  the 
department  of  natural  philosophy  by  the  wonderful  dis- 
covery of  spectral  analysis  and  the  universal  recognition  of 
the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  and  the  transmutation 
of  forces  ; in  the  department  of  astronomy  by  the  further 
discoveries  on  the  condition  and  movements  of  distant 
heavenly  bodies  and  the  universality  of  natural  laws  ; in 
that  of  geology  by  the  corroboration  of  Lyell’s  theory  of 
stability  ; in  anthropology  by  the  demonstration  of  the  de- 
scent of  man  from  animals  and  of  the  antiquity  of  the 
human  race  on  earth  ; in  the  department  of  biology  by  the 
powerful  influence  of  Darwin’s  famous  theory  of  evolution 
and  by  the  facts  that  go  to  show  the  genesis  of  the  lowest 
primal  organisms,  as  well  as  by  the  entire  abandonment  of 
the  baneful  theory  of  design  ; in  that  of  anatomy  by  the 
discovery  of  the  cell  as  the  fundamental  form  of  the  or- 
ganic world,  and  by  its  being  clearly  proved  that  the  brains 
of  men  and  of  animals  are  not  fundamentally  distinct  from 
one  another  ; in  that  of  physiology  by  those  investigations 
on  the  localization  of  the  functions  of  the  brain  which  form 


XII 


PREFACE. 


a landmark  in  the  history  of  science  at  large,  and  by  the 
total  rejection  of  the  theory  of  vital  force  ; in  the  depart- 
ment of  chemistry  by  the  gigantic  strides  made  by  chemical 
synthesis  ; in  that  of  psychology  by  the  searches  made 
into  the  psychical  and  intellectual  life  of  animals,  and  by 
the  abandonment  of  the  theory  of  instinct,  induced  by  a 
clearer  understanding  on  the  laws  of  heredity.  All  these 
discoveries  had  either  not  been  made,  or  were  still  in  an 
embryonic  state,  when  the  author  first  put  pen  to  paper  in 
the  year  1855  ; and  yet  this  imperfect  state  of  our  knowl- 
edge did  not  prevent  him,  impelled,  as  he  felt,  by  the  want 
of  philosophical  unity,  from  getting  at  views  which  have 
received  such  a thorough  confirmation  and  have  been  so 
fully  complemented  by  the  progress  of  science  within  a com- 
paratively brief  space  of  time.  On  this  account  the  author 
has  felt  justified  in  reinstating,  either  wholly  or  in  part, 
various  expressions  and  utterances  contained  in  the  first 
edition  of  this  book,  which  appearing  to  him  to  go  to 
rather  an  undue  length,  he  had,  under  the  pressure  of  the 
general  and  passionate  opposition,  expunged  from  the  sub- 
sequent editions.  For  instance,  in  the  chapter  on  Free 
Will  contained  in  the  first  edition,  there  were  certain  re- 
marks— afterwards  omitted  — which  dealt  with  the  moral 
consequences  of  his  views  on  natural  philosophy.  These 
remarks  have  been  restored  and  amplified  in  this  edition  in 
a special  chapter  on  Morality.  The  author  has  felt  him- 
self all  the  more  bound  to  do  this,  since  one  of  the  ob- 
jections most  frequently  urged  against  his  views,  is  that  he 
was  destroying  the  old  faith  and  putting  no  new  one  in  its 
place.  No  doubt,  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  a natural 
order  in  the  universe  is  at  least  as  good  as,  and  in  reality 
far  better  than,  a belief  in  the  existence  of  an  order  o t 
things  antagonistic  to  nature,  as  has  already  been  proved 
to  demonstration  by  D.  Strauss,  in  his  famous  book  on 
The  Old  Faith  and  the  New.  Yet  the  author  thought 
it  right  not  to  omit  to  supply  facts  which  prove  so  very 
clearly  that  morality  is  compatible  with  a natural  order  ol 


PREFACE. 


XIII 


things,  and  to  show  to  those  who  accept  the  new  faith  that, 
in  doing  so,  they  lose  nothing  in  moral  value  either  in 
their  own  eyes  or  in  those  of  Society  at  large,  but  that  on 
the  contrary  they  have  only  to  gain  by  it.  The  reader 
must  judge  for  himself  whether  or  not  the  author  has  suc- 
ceeded in  furnishing  this  demonstration. 

The  author  has  held  that  the  prefaces  to  the  editions 
published  subsequent  to  the  first,  might  be  omitted  with- 
out any  detriment  to  the  book.  They  have  for  the  most 
part  lost  their  former  special  interest,  since  the  combats 
waged  around  the  book  have  now  exhausted  their  fury,  and 
are  not  likely  to  rise  again  as  before.  In  fact,  the  author 
is  now  so  situated  as  to  stand  no  longer  in  need  of  such 
commentaries,  having  in  the  meanwhile  published  a large 
number  of  additional  writings,  which  further  develop  and 
complete  the  views  laid  down  in  Force  and  Matter  in  all 
essential  points.  . . . 

The  author  does  not  intend  to  enter  on  further  polemics 
and  controversies  with  his  opponents,  in  the  way  he  used 
to  do  ; for  the  fact  of  his  enemies  being  so  very  numerous, 
he  derives  comfort  and  consolation  from  the  old  German 
saying,  “He  who  has  many  enemies,  is  much  honored.” 
Well  does  he  know  that,  like  all  men,  he  is  liable  to  error, 
but  that,  as  Lessing  says, — “ The  value  of  a man  does  not 
depend  on  the  truth  he  possesses  or  believes  he  possesses, 
but  on  the  sincere  labor  he  has  bestowed  upon  getting  at 
the  truth  ; for  it  is  not  the  possession  of,  but  the  search 
for  truth,  that  increases  his  strength  and  thereby  makes  him 
more  perfect.”  This  sincere  labor  undertaken  with  the  ob- 
ject of  getting  at  the  truth,  or  an  ardent  love  of  truth, 
simplicity  and  candor,  could  alone  induce  the  author  to 
issue  this  book,  in  which  he  has  placed  himself  in  such  a 
keen  and  to  him  most  distasteful  opposition  to  the  ruling 
ideas  and  authorities  of  his  own  time.  It  is  not  the  present 
age,  but  a remote  future  which  he  himself  will  never  live  to 
see,  that  can  and  will  do  justice  to  his  intentions.  Looking 
at  things  in  this  light,  he  thinks  he  may  bid  farewell  to  the 


XIV 


PREFACE. 


host  of  those  who  have  been  his  opponents,  by  quoting  the 
following  brief  verses  : — 

Wer  richtet  zwischen  mir  und  Euch  ? — 

Nicht  ein  Geschlecht,  dess  schwache  Art, 

An  alien  Vorurtheilen  reich, 

Von  Eurer  Hand  erzogen  ward  ! 


Doch  Einstens,  wenn  mit  jaliem  Fall 
Zusammenbriclit  der  Liige  Reich, 
Dann  spricht  die  Zeit  zum  Zweitenmal 
Das  rechte  Urtheil  mir  und  Euch ! 


(Who  shall  judge  between  you  and  me  ? Not  a race  of 
feeble  type,  rich  in  prejudices,  and  trained  by  your  hand  ! 
But  some  day,  when  the  realm  of  lies  shall  have  come  down 
with  a sudden  crash,  then  shall  time  deliver  an  equitable 
judgment  upon  you  and  me  !) 


As  regards  the  verses  that  are  scattered  here  and  there 
through  the  book,  they  were  mostly  contained  in  the  earlier 
editions,  but  had  subsequently  been  struck  out  for  want  of 
space.  The  prefaces  having  now  disappeared,  there  was 
no  further  reason  for  omitting  them,  and  they  have  there- 
fore been  reinstated.  In  those  cases  in  which  the  name  of 
the  poet  is  not  given,  they  are  the  author’s  own  pro- 
ductions. 

Finally,  it  may  be  noted  that  the  book  in  its  new  shape 
is  being  issued  simultaneously  in  German,  in  English  and 
in  French. 


Darmstadt , April , 1884. 


The  Author. 


Force  and  Matter. 


“The  universe,  that  is  the  All,  is  made  neither  of  gods  nor  of  men,  but  ever  has 
been  and  ever  will  be  an  eternal  living  Fire,  kindling  and  extinguishing 
in  destined  measure,  a game  which  Zeus  plays  with  himself.”  — Heraklitus 
of  Ephesus. 

“He  to  whom  time  is  as  eternity,  and  eternity  as  time,  is  free  from  all  turmoil.” 
— J.  Bohme. 

(Where  there  are  three  students  of  nature,  there  are  two  atheists.) 

U I ^ORCE  is  no  impelling  god,  no  entity  separate  from 
M the  material  substratum  ; it  is  inseparable  from 
matter,  is  one  of  its  eternal  indwelling  properties.’  ’ 
“A  force  unconnected  with  matter,  hovering  loose  over 
matter,  is  an  utterly  empty  conception.  In  nitrogen,  carbon, 
hydrogen,  oxygen,  in  sulphur  and  phosphorus,  their  sev- 
eral properties  have  dwelt  from  all  eternity.” — Moleschoti. 

“ Fundamentally,  as  is  readily  seen,  there  exists  neither 
force  nor  matter.  Both  are  abstractions  of  things,  such  as 
they  are,  looked  at  from  different  standpoints.  They  com- 
plete and  presuppose  each  other.  Isolated  they  are  mean- 
ingless. . . Matter  is  not  a go-cart,  to  and  from  which 

force,  like  a horse,  can  be  now  harnessed,  now  loosed.  A 
particle  of  iron  is  and  remains  exactly  the  same  thing, 
whether  it  shoot  through  space  as  a meteoric  stone,  dash 
along  on  the  tire  of  an  engine-wheel,  or  roll  in  a blood- 
corpuscle  through  the  veins  of  a poet.  Its  properties  are 
eternal,  unchangeable,  untransferable.” — Dubois -Reymond. 

“ Nothing  in  the  world  authorizes  us  to  suppose  the  ex- 
istence of  forces  in  and  by  themselves,  without  bodies,  from 
which  they  can  go  out  and  on  which  they  work.”  — Cotta . 


2 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


“As  we  can  think  of  no  force  without  a material  sub 
stratum,  so  we  know  of  no  matter  which  is  not  connected 
with  a number  of  forces.’’ — F.  Mohr. 

“ Force  without  matter  is  not  a reality,  and  both  by 
their  union  have  made  the  world  and  all  its  phenomena. 
Without  matter  no  force,  without  force  no  phenomenon, 
also  without  matter  no  phenomenon.’’ — Ph.  Spiller. 

“We  know  of  no  matter  which  does  not  possess  force, 
and  on  the  other  hand  we  know  of  no  forces  which  are 
not  joined  to  matter.’’ — Hceckel. 

“To  regard  matter  as  passive,  and  to  suppose  a force 
working  on  it  from  without,  is  so  grave  an  error  that  it 
would  not  be  possible  to  fall  into  it  if  inborn  and  mystical 
fancies  did  not  cloud  the  mind.  Matter  and  force,  like 
force  and  matter,  are  no  separable  entities,  but  different 
conditions  of  one  and  the  same  thing. — F.  Vignoli. 

“Matter  and  force  are  separable  only  in  thought  : in 
reality  they  are  one.’’ — A.  Mayer. 

“ We  must  hold  firmly  to  the  principle  that  matter  and 
force  are  indivisibly  joined  together,  so  that  force  without 
matter  has  no  independent  existence.’’ — .S'.  Cornelius. 

“ It  is  apparent  that  all  attempts  to  isolate  forces  from 
matter,  and  vice  versa , are  only  one-sided  abstractions, 
depending  on  the  notion  that  force  and  matter  may  be 
found  in  Nature  as  distinct  entities,  because  in  speech  they 
are  distinct  words.” — Weis. 

“ The  first  and  last  word  of  Science  will  always  be  the 
indivisible  union  between  or  the  identity  of  force  and 
matter.” — A.  Lefevre. 

With  these  quotations  from  well-known  investigators, 
learned  men,  and  authors,  we  commence  a chapter  that 
is  to  serve  as  a foundation  for  the  subsequent  investi- 
gations into  one  of  the  simplest  and  weightiest  of  truths, 
which  is,  perhaps,  for  that  very  reason,  one  of  the  least 
known  and  least  recognized.  No  force  without  matter — • 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


3 


no  matter  without  force.  One  is  no  more  possible,  and 
no  more  imaginable  by  itself  than  the  other.  Separated 
from  each  other,  each  becomes  an  empty  abstraction  or 
idea,  which  is  only  useful  as  showing  two  sides  or  manifes- 
tations of  the  same  existence,  the  nature  of  which  in  itself 
is  unknown  to  us.  Force  and  matter  are  fundamentally 
the  same  thing,  contemplated  from  different  standpoints. 
In  the  material  world  we  know  of  no  example  of  a particle 
of  matter  not  endowed  with  force  or  working  by  it.  We 
must  further  admit  on  closer  investigation,  that  matter  as 
such  could  make  no  impression  on  our  sense-organs  or 
minds  ; it  can  only  do  this  by  means  of  the  forces  united 
with  or  at  work  within  it.  A piece  of  lead  held  in  the 
hand  presses  on  it  because  of  the  attractive  force  of  the 
earth  and  so  produces  the  idea  of  weight.  Neither  can  we 
imagine  an  ideal  substance  of  forceless  matter.  Think  of 
what  original  substance  we  may,  a system  of  reciprocal 
attraction  and  repulsion  must  always  exist  between  its 
smallest  particles,  and  this  is  the  cause  of  the  subsequent 
changes,  and  the  relationship  of  each  particle  with  the 
others  is  regulated  or  controlled  by  forces  which  lend  their 
properties  to  the  combinations  or  forms  arising  therefrom. 
“A  thing  without  properties,”  says  Drossbach,  ‘‘is  an 
absurdity,  neither  imaginable  in  reason  nor  experienced  in 
Nature.”  “ As  water  flows  through  the  fingers,”  forcibly 
remarks  A.  Laugel,  “so  disappears  the  idea  of  matter,  as 
soon  as  we  try  to  separate  it  from  the  idea  of  motion  or  of 
force,  just  as  if  we  seek  to  part  it  from  that  of  shape.”* 
Equally  empty  and  untenable  as  the  notion  of  matter 
without  force,  is  that  of  force  without  matter.  Only  the 
superstition  or  ignorance  of  former  centuries  could  regard 

* Hence  comes  it  that  we  are  learning  more  and  more  to  regard  Chemistry  or 
the  science  which  deals  with  matter  (as  was  partly  done  in  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries)  as  a branch  or  subdivision  of  Physics,  the  science 
which  deals  with  force.  Perhaps,  and  even  probably,  the  distinction  between 
chemical  and  physical  forces  lies  only  in  this,  that  the  first  deals  chiefly  with  the 
so-called  atoms,  minutest  particles  of  matter,  while  the  second  deals  chiefly  with 
the  molecules,  groups  of  like  or  unlike  atoms.  Or,  in  other  words,  Chemistry  may 
be  regarded  as  the  mechanics  of  the  atom,  Physics  as  the  mechanics  of  the  molecule. 


4 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


as  possible  the  existence  of  forces  in  Nature  which  act  apart 
from  matter  ; such  possibilities  are  to-day  wholly  banished 
from  science.  Nothing  can  prove  to  us  the  real  existence 
of  a force,  except  the  properties,  changes  and  movements, 
which  we  become  conscious  of  in  matter,  and  these  we  call 
different  “ forces  ” according  to  the  resemblances  or  differ- 
ences in  such  manifestations  : any  knowledge  of  them  by 
other  ways  is  impossible.  If  we  try  to  think  of  an  Electri- 
city, a Magnetism,  a Weight,  a Heat,  a chemical  affinity, 
etc.,  without  the  substances  in  which  we  have  observed  the 
manifestations  of  these  forces,  or  without  those  material 
particles  the  molecular  interaction  of  which  gives  rise  to  the 
manifestations  — nothing  remains  to  us  save  an  empty  idea, 
a word-sign,  which  we  can  only  use  in  order  to  designate 
and  separate  off  a certain  class  or  group  of  material  phe- 
nomena. Any  real  conception  of  what  forces  are  in  them- 
selves, or  what  force  can  be  outside  of  matter,  escapes  us 
just  as  does  the  idea  of  what  material  bodies  or  matter 
would  be  without  force.  In  strictness  we  cannot  speak  of 
Electricity,  but  only  of  the  electrical  condition  of  or  of 
electrically  excited  matter.  We  cannot  speak  of  Light, 
but  only  of  shining  bodies,  of  bodies  giving  light  by  vibra- 
tion ; nor  of  Heat,  but  only  of  a change  in  the  reciprocal 
positions  of  vibrating  atoms  or  molecules  from  their  so- 
called  statical  condition  ; nor  of  Weight,  but  only  of  bodies 
which  exercise  pressure  by  gravitation,  and  so  on. 

All  the  so-called  imponderables — -a  name  which  desig- 
nated formerly  as  matter  incapable  of  being  weighed  cer- 
tain forms  of  force,  as  Heat,  Light,  Electricity,  Magnetism, 
are  neither  more  nor  less  than  changes  in  the  reciprocal 
conditions  or  the  active  state  of  the  minutest  particles, 
changes  which  are  transmitted  from  one  body  to  another, 
from  material  to  material,  by  a kind  of  contagion  or  trans- 
ference of  motion.  Hence  forces,  as  Mulder  well  points 
out,  cannot  be  imparted  or  made,  but  only  excited,  or 
changed  from  a latent  to  a free  or  cognizable  state.  Mag- 
netism cannot  be  transferred,  as  it  would  seem,  but  only 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


5 


evoked  or  opened  up  as  we  change  the  inner  active  condition 
of  its  medium.  The  magnetic  forces  are  present  in  the 
molecules  or  smallest  particles  of  the  iron  and  are — as  for 
example  in  a magnet— strongest  exactly  in  the  part  where 
they  are  least  or  not  at  all  noticeable  from  without,  i.  e.  in 
the  middle.  Heat—  that  most  ancient  and  essential  force 
of  Nature  which  is  ceaselessly  at  work  everywhere  and  can 
be  changed  into  all  other  forms  of  force  or  can  be  obtained 
from  them  — is  not,  as  was  once  thought,  imponderable 
matter,  passing  from  body  to  body,  but  molecular  or  atomic 
motion,  an  exceedingly  swift,  trembling,  swaying  or  vibra- 
ting movement  of  the  smallest  particles  or  molecules  of  a 
body,  whereby  at  the  same  time  these  particles  recede  from 
each  other,  while  under  the  influence  of  the  contrary  or  of 
cold  they  press  more  closely  together.  Heat  and  Cold  are 
only  to  be  distinguished  by  the  fact  that  this  molecular 
motion  in  a relatively  cold  body  is  less  energetic  than  in  one 
relatively  warm.  Heat  is  also  generally  manifested  by  the 
expansion,  Cold  by  the  contraction  of  the  material  ; we 
know,  as  Grove  ( Correlation  of  Physical  Forces')  remarks, 
“nothing  but  the  constant  change  of  matter  whereof  Heat 
is  the  universal  sign  ; the  entity  Heat  is  unknown  to  us.’’ 
Similarly  with  Light , which,  according  to  the  latest  dis- 
coveries, must  be  looked  upon  as  identical  with  Heat,  since 
the  difference  is  only  the  difference’  in  the  number  of  the 
ether-vibrations  and  the  vibrations  of  the  molecules  of 
bodies  caused  by  these  ; this  is  no  imponderable  matter, 
as  was  once  supposed,  but  an  inconceivably  swift  vibrating 
or  wave-like  motion  of  matter,  of  the  atoms  of  the  un- 
aggregated  matter  filling  space  and  penetrating  into  all 
bodies,  the  infinitely  rare  light-ether ; a motion  which 
according  to  circumstances  is  now  Light,  now  Heat,  now 
Electricity,  now  Magnetism,  now  chemical  affinity.  So  also 
Sound , resembling  Light  in  its  motion,  is  no  hearing- 
matter,  carried  by  the  air  to  the  ear,  but  is  only  the  moving 
air  itself,  which  imparts  its  movement  to  our  organ  of 
hearing. 


6 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


The  remarkable  and  brilliant  prospects  opening  in  the 
iuture  to  the  force  of  Electricity  do  not  rest,  as  was  first 
thought,  on  the  existence  of  a so-called  electrical  fluid,  thac 
flows  from  body  to  body  ; on  the  contrary,  late  investigation 
into  electrical  action  teaches  us  to  regard  it  as  merely  a 
change  of  condition  of  the  universal  material  or  matter. 
“ When  we  throw  a glance  around  all  the  known  groups  of 
electrical  phenomena  or  manifestations,”  says  Grove , “ we 
do  not  find  a single  one  that  cannot  be  relegated  to  a 
change  of  the  molecules  in  the  electrically  excited  substance. 
For  instance  let  the  charge  from  a Leyden  jar  be  sent 
through  a platinum  wire  ; it  will  be  found  that  the  wire  has 
shortened,  so  that  molecular  change  must  have  taken  place. 
If  the  discharge  is  continued,  the  wire  will  at  length  rise 
into  little  folds  or  actual  irregularities.  A lead  wire  swells 
into  knots,  which  press  on  each  other,  as  bodies  of  a soft 
substance  threaded  against  each  other  on  a string.  Further, 
metallic  wires  through  which  an  electric  current  has  been 
passed  for  a long  time,  gradually  change  their  internal 
structure  and  become  sometimes  stronger,  sometimes  more 
brittle.  Magnetism  also  changes  the  elasticity  of  iron  or 
steel,  and  a bar  slightly  bent  by  its  own  weight  straightens 
itself  when  magnetized.’  ’ In  a similar  way  bodies  are  acted 
upon,  according  to  Grove , ( mutatis  mutandis)  by  all  other 
forces.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  chemical  dissociation  of 
compounds,  whose  elements  are  very  weakly  united,  can 
be  brought  about  by  purely  mechanical  causes,  e.  g.  by  the 
vibrations  produced  by  a sound  in  the  air. 

In  a still  greater  extent  is  this  true  of  the  vibrations  of 
light,  which  bring  about  the  most  startling  chemical 
reactions,  sometimes  decompositions  of  chemical  com- 
pounds, sometimes  unions  of  chemical  elements  ; as  an 
instance  of  the  latter  we  may  take  the  explosive  union  of 
chlorine  and  hydrogen  into  hydrochloric  acid  by  the  action 
of  sunlight,  and  of  the  former  the  decomposition  of  the 
carbonic  acid  of  the  air  by  the  vegetable  kingdom  under 
the  action  of  light.  This  also  shows  how  the  so-called  latent 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


7 


forces  or  energies  — among  which,  besides  the  chemical 
difference  or  affinity,  must  be  reckoned  the  weight  or 
general  mass  attraction  and  the  cohesion  or  molecular 
force  — can  be  changed  every  moment  into  living  or  active 
forces  or  can  be  drawn  out  of  the  latter,  and  how  therefore 
in  these  also  we  can  only  speak  of  the  condition  or  move- 
ments of  molecules.  Whether  this  condition  manifests 
itself  in  a possible  or  in  a real  movement,  whether  only  an 
activity  or  a true  motion  of  the  force-bearer  results,  makes 
in  reality  no  difference.  The  time  no  longer  appears  far 
off  when  science  will  be  able  to  derive  all  forces  without 
exception  not  merely  out  of  capacity  for  motion  but  out  of 
motion  itself. 

On  these  grounds  the  investigators  and  authors  named 
at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  define  force  as  a mere 
property  of  matter  or  as  its  capacity  for  work.  To  put 
it  more  accurately.  Force  may  be  defined  as  a condition 
of  activity  or  a motion  of  matter  or  of  the  minutest  particles 
of  matter  or  a capacity  thereof ; yet  more  precisely,  as  an 
expression  for  the  reaso?i  of  a possible  or  actual  movement 
— differences  which  in  reality  alter  nothing  in  the  matter 
itself  Force  can  no  more  exist  without  Matter,  than  seeing 
without  an  organ  of  sight,  or  a thought  without  an  organ 
of  thinking.  “ No  one  has  ever  thought,”  says  Karl  Vogt , 
‘‘of  maintaining  that  secretion  can  exist  separate  from  the 
gland,  or  contractility  separate  from  the  musclefibre.  The 
absurdity  of  such  an  idea  is  so  striking  that  nobody  has 
ventured  to  think  of  it  in  connexion  with  these  organs.” 

“Not  outside  matter,  or  outside  bodies  is  the  supposed  force 
or  property  found,  but  only  within  them  ; and  the  thought 
that  affinity  (Force)  has  a separate  existence  outside  the 
bodies  in  which  it  inheres  or  to  which  it  gives  the  capacity 
for  their  particular  demeanor,  is  so  utterly  monstrous, 
so  wholly  incomprehensible,  that  it  is  almost  an  insult  to 
common  sense  to  further  enlarge  upon  it.” — A.  Mayer. 

What  general  philosophic  consequence  is  deducible  from 
this  simple  and  obvious  fact? 


8 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


That  those  who  talk  about  an  independent  or  super- 
natural creative  force,  which  has  evolved  the  universe  out 
of  itself  or  out  of  nothing',  are  in  antagonism  with  the  first 
and  simplest  axiom  of  a philosophical  view  of  nature, 
grounded  on  experience  and  reality.  Neither  can  force 
create  matter,  nor  matter  force,  for  we  have  seen  that  a 
separate  existence  of  these  is  neither  empirically  possible 
nor  logically  imaginable.  But  things  which  cannot  be 
separated  can  never  exist  separately.  That  the  universe 
cannot  have  arisen  from  nothing  we  shall  find  presently, 
when  we  treat  of  the  conservation  or  eternity  of  matter  and 
force.  Nil  is  as  much  an  empirical  as  it  is  a logical  non- 
entity, a general  negation  of  all  existence.  Never  can 
nothing  become  something,  nor  something  nothing.  Ex 
nihilo  nihil fit , et  in  nihilum  nihil  potest  reverti. — Lucretius 
Carus.  The  universe  or  matter  with  its  properties,  con- 
ditions or  movements,  which  we  name  forces,  must  have 
existed  from  and  will  exist  to  all  eternity,  or — in  other 
words  — the  universe  cannot  have  been  created.  If  we  are 
to  accept  such  a creation  it  must  first  of  all  be  proven  to  us 
how  it  is  possible  or  imaginable  that  something  can  come 
out  of  nothing  — which  is  an  impossibility.  It  must  further 
be  shown  how  it  is  possible  or  thinkable  that  the  creative 
force  which  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  cause  of  the  universe, 
existed  before  the  creation,  without  creating  or  without 
activity  — and  this  is  a still  greater  impossibility.  The  con- 
ception of  an  inactive  creative  force  without  any  real 
existence  besides  itself  is  as  impossible  as  that  of  Force 
without  Matter.  If  however  an  original  chaos  is  supposed, 
into  which  at  a given  time  the  creative  force  introduced 
order  and  reason,  then  is  the  idea  of  creation  as  such  given 
up,  and  we  come  back  to  the  eternity  of  the  universe, 
which,  as  will  be  presently  shown,  excludes  or  renders 
superfluous  any  creative  or  regulating  principle.  What 
educated  person,  in  the  face  of  the  discoveries  of  modern 
science,  or  even  with  a superficial  acquaintance  therewith, 
can  seriously  doubt  that  the  universe  is  not — as  used  to  be 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


9 


said  in  the  phraseology  of  theological  cant  — governed,  i.  e. 
led  or  guided  by  a force  outside  itself,  but  that,  in  all  its 
movements  and  transmutations,  it  obeys  a manifest  necessity 
of  nature  from  which  there  is  no  exception?  Never  and 
nowhere,  at  no  time,  nor  in  the  furthest  realms  of  space  to 
which  our  telescope  reaches,  can  one  fact  be  demonstrated 
with  scientific  certainty  which  contradicts  this  natural 
necessity  and  admits  or  necessitates  the  admission  of  an 
active  self-conscious  force,  outside  the  natural  order  of  the 
universe.  If  man  will  have  a creative  force,  an  absolute 
power,  a world  or  original  soul,  an  unknown  x — no  matter 
by  what  alias  it  goes  — as  the  cause  of  the  universe,  then 
must  he  say,  applying  to  it  the  idea  of  time,  that  it  could 
exist  neither  before  nor  after  the  creation.  It  could  not  exist 
before  it,  for  the  reasons  already  stated  ; it  could  not  exist 
afterwards,  because  again  rest  and  inactivity  cannot  be 
connected  with  the  conception  of  such  a force,  and  would 
abrogate  it.  A creative  force  that  does  not  manifest  itself 
and  that  shows  no  sign  of  its  presence  cannot  exist,  or  at 
least  cannot  in  any  way  be  taken  into  account  in  our 
thought.  De  non  apparentibus  et  non  exisientibus  eadem 
est  ratio.  (The  non-apparent  and  the  non-existent  must  be 
treated  in  the  same  way.)  If  the  creative  force  after  creation 
is  to  be  regarded  as  sunk  in  eternal  self- contented  repose 
or  in  inward  self-contemplation,  this  can  only  be  taken  as 
a philosophical  fancy  picture,  without  any  real  or  trust- 
worthy basis. 

There  remains  only  a third  possibility,  i.  e.  the  super- 
fluous and  monstrous  conception  that  the  creative  force 
suddenly  and  without  any  definite  reason  emerged  from 
Nothingness,  created  the  universe  (out  of  what?)  and 
directly  the  work  was  done,  sank  back  into  itself,  in  some 
measure  embodied  itself  in  the  world,  or  dissolved  into  the 
universe.  Philosophers  and  laymen  have  always  clung  to 
this  theory,  because  they  hope  in  this  fashion  to  reconcile 
the  undeniable  fact  of  an  invariable  and  established  order 
of  nature  with  a belief  in  a supernatural,  independent,  crea- 


IO 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


tive  principle.  Most  religious  conceptions  lean  more  or 
less  towards  this  idea,  but  with  this  difference,  that  they 
regard  the  universal  spirit  as  indeed  resting  after  creation, 
but  as  a higher  power  which  can  at  any  time  and  at  his 
own  will  suspend  or  alter  the  laws  of  nature.  This  may 
suffice  for  those  who  would  solve  the  problem  of  the  uni- 
verse by  faith.  But  for  those  who  here  also  take  reason 
and  logic  as  their  rule,  this  conception  is  as  inadmissible  as 
its  fellows.  The  very  application  of  finite  conceptions  of 
dme  to  the  creative  force  entails  an  incongruity  ; a still 
greater  one  is  its  rise  from  the  nil.  A creative  force  that 
either  creates  itself  or  arises  from  nothing,  and  which  is  a 
causa  sui  (its  own  cause),  exactly  resembles  Baron  Miinch- 
hausen,  who  drew  himself  out  of  the  bog  by  taking  hold 
of  his  own  hair.  If,  in  order  to  avoid  this  difficulty,  we 
give  the  attribute  of  eternity  to  the  creative  force,  then  this 
is  merely  another  phrase  for  the  eternity  of  the  universe, 
which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  excludes  or  renders  super- 
fluous every  creating  principle.  The  useless  search  of 
philosophers  for  a cause  of  the  universe  is  a regressus  in 
infinitum  (a  stepping  backwards  into  the  infinite)  and  re- 
sembles climbing  up  an  endless  ladder,  the  recurring  ques- 
tion as  to  the  cause  of  the  cause  rendering  the  attainment 
of  a final  goal  impossible.  At  any  rate  the  existence  of  the 
universe  wfith  its  perfections  and  imperfections,  with  its  for- 
ever and  ever  interacting  processes  of  development  and 
reversion,  is  a more  possible  and  more  intelligible  concep- 
tion than  the  theory  of  a perfect  self  conscious  creative 
force  springing  from  a reasonless  Nothing. 

If  therefore  the  creative  force  cannot  have  existed  before 
the  universe  came  into  being  ; if  it  cannot  exist  after  the 
same  event;  if  it  is  not  imaginable  that  it  existed  only  for 
a moment;  if  Matter  and  Force  (as  will  be  presently  shown) 
are  indestructible,  and  if  there  is  no  matter  without  force, 
no  force  without  matter  — there  can  remain  no  doubt  that 
the  universe  was  not  created,  that  it  was  not  called  into  life 
by  some  will  residing  outside  itself,  but  that  it  is  eternal. 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


II 


That  which  has  neither  beginning  nor  end  in  time  or  space 
can  have  none  in  existence.  That  which  cannot  be  de- 
stroyed cannot  have  been  created.  ‘ 1 Matter  is  uncreatable 
as  it  is  indestructible.” — Carl  Vogt.  “If  matter  is  inde- 
structible, then  it  is  also  uncreated.” — Spiller.  “The 

Universe  as  a totality  is  without  cause,  without  origin, 
without  end.” — Du  Prel. 

Simple  and  self-evident  as  may  appear  to  us,  in  the 
present  state  of  knowledge,  the  inseparability  of  the  con- 
ceptions of  Force  and  Matter,  this  has  not  always  been  so, 
and  human  reason  only  attained  that  simple  idea  after 
passing  through  many  phases  of  ignorance  or  error.  For 
the  simplest  idea  of  a matter,  as  Grove  very  well  remarks, 
is  generally  that  to  which  the  human  mind  turns  last  ; and 
simplicity  is  the  hall-mark  of  truth.  ( Simplex  veri  sigillum.) 
According  to  one  of  the  excellent  essays  of  the  English 
thinker  Bence  Jones,  the  conceptions  of  Force  and  Matter 
have  passed  through  three  separate  and  distinct  phases  of 
development,  in  the  last  of  which  we  now  are.  In  the  first 
phase,  men  regarded  Force  and  Matter  as  two  wholly 
distinct  entities  and  bestowed  separate  names  on  the  self- 
existent  forces  of  nature  or  their  manifestations,  regarding 
them  as  the  results  of  the  activity  of  certain  supernatural 
beings  ( vulgo  gods).  Thus  earth,  heaven,  air,  water,  wind, 
stream,  light,  fire,  sun,  darkness,  day,  night,  etc.,  each 
had  its  own  spirit  or  god.  Thus,  among  the  Greeks,  Zeus 
was  the  god  of  thunder  and  lightning,  while  his  consort 
Hera  represented  rain  and  vapor  ; Phoebus  was  the  god  of 
the  day,  his  sister  Artemis  the  goddess  of  the  night,  Uranus 
represented  the  sky,  Gaia  the  earth,  Poseidon  the  sea, 
Hephczstos  the  fire,  Asolus  the  winds,  Aphrodite  the  power 
of  fascination,  and  so  on.  The  ancient  Indians,  Chinese, 
Egyptians,  Persians,  etc.,  held  similar  views.  The  Greek 
philosophers,  although  several  among  them  cherished  very 
refined  cosmological  theories,  generally  made  a very  sharp 
division  between  Force  and  Matter  and  regarded  the  latter 
as  moved  from  without,  being  itseh  k,  capable  of  movement 


12 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


— a theory  which  held  its  ground  until  the  times  of  Des- 
cartes and  Newton,  owing  to  the  vast  influence  of  the 
Aristotelian  philosophy.  This  first  phase  was  followed  by 
the  second,  in  which,  instead  of  a complete  separation 
between  Force  and  Matter,  there  was  an  incomplete  sepa- 
ration of  these  concepts.  Force  was  then  united  in  some 
way  to  ponderable  matter,  but  was  fundamentally  some- 
thing quite  different,  being  itself  a kind  of  matter  that  could 
not  be  weighed,  i.  e.  an  imponderable.  From  this  theory 
resulted  the  famous  but  now  discredited  emanation  or 
emission  theory  of  light,  according  to  which  light  con- 
sisted of  minute  imponderable  particles,  travelling  with 
inconceivable  rapidity.  Heat  was  regarded  as  a fluid  con- 
veyed from  body  to  body  : in  similar  fashion  Electricity 
and  Magnetism  were  looked  upon  as  special  electrical  and 
magnetic  fluids.  The  belief  in  the  famous  Phlogiston  or 
combustible  principle  — which  was  supposed  to  be  the 
cause  of  combustion,  and  which  was  set  aside  at  the  end  of 
the  last  century  by  the  discovery  of  oxygen  — comes  in 
under  this  head  ; it  is  the  same  with  the  spirit  of  amber, 
which  Thales  gave  as  the  reason  for  its  property  of  at- 
traction, and  so  with  many  others.  In  the  third  phase 
only,  the  phase  of  modern  thought,  has  it  been  recognized 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  imponderable  matter,  and  the 
unity,  unchangeability  and  indestructibility  of  the  force- 
endued  atoms  have  been  discovered.  This  is  the  phase  of 
the  unity  and  inseparability  of  Force  and  Matter,  in  which 
it  is  seen  that,  for  instance,  there  can  no  more  be  matter 
without  attraction  or  weight,  than  force  of  weight  or  attrac- 
tion without  matter,  and  all  known  forces  and  activities 
only  consist  in  the  conditions  or  movements  of  the  smallest 
particles  of  matter.  Wherever  matter  is  found,  there  must 
also  be  force  in  a state  of  motion,  tension  and  resistance, 
and  vice  versd. 

Moreover  we  find,  as  might  be  expected,  many  stages  of 
transition  between  these  phases.  The  most  difficult  one  to 
set  aside  is  the  dualistic  hypothesis  of  Force  and  Matter  in 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


13 


Biology,  the  Science  of  Life,  which,  in  consequence  of  the 
complicated  and  therefore  less  easily  traced  relationships 
of  the  transmutations  of  organized  matter,  stands  chiefly  in 
the  way  of  a more  accurate  theory.  Thus,  for  instance, 
the  famous  physician,  Paracelsus , did  not  venture  to  rep- 
resent the  physical  functions  of  nutrition,  digestion,  secre- 
tion, etc.,  as  what  they  really  are,  the  functions  or  activities 
of  their  proper  bodily  organs,  but  described  them  as  the 
work  of  certain  vital  spirits.  In  similar  fashion  appeared 
later  on  the  “ Archaeus  ” or  “stomach  spirit”  of  van 
Helmont,  Borelli’s  “ nerve  spirit,”  Hofmann’s  “life-sub- 
stance,” Haller’s  “ irritability,”  Stahl’s  “Anima  animata" 
and  the  whole  host  of  names  of  nerve-force,  imagination- 
force,  vital-force,  force  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  etc., 
which  in  the  science  of  life  took  the  place  of  the  imponder- 
ables of  inorganic  nature.  Here,  too,  Force  is  considered 
as  a subtle  fluid  substance  or  an  imponderable  elementary 
principle,  whose  previous  union  with  material  bodies  was 
dissolved  at  death.  We  are  sorry  to  confess  that  biological 
hypotheses  have  not  yet  completely  got  out  of  the  second 
phase,  and  that  the  ghost  of  “vital  force” — which  will 
be  fully  dealt  with  in  a later  chapter  — still  haunts  many 
wise  heads,  notably  those  of  philosophers,  while  the  physi- 
cal and  chemical  sciences  have  long  since  passed  into  the 
third  and  last  stage. 


Immortality  of  Matter 


u From  nothing  nothing.  Nothing  that  is  can  be  annihilated.”  — Democritus. 

“ It  is  an  indubitable  fact,  proved  by  a thousand  chemical  experiments,  that  no 
ponderable  bodies  or  elements  can  perish  nor  disappear,  and  equally  that  no 
new  ones  can  originate,  l he  property  that  cannot  perish  in  time  cannot  be 
evolved  in  time.  That  which  cannot  be  destroyed  cannot  be  originated. 
It  follows  that  matter  has  existed  from  eternity,  that  it  was  neither  created 
nor  evolved,  that  its  totality  which  is  infinitely  great  can  be  neither  increased 
nor  diminished,  and  this  also  on  the  ground  that  the  infinitely  great  cannot 
be  increased  by  the  addition  of  the  finite,  and  that  its  characteristic  of  in- 
destructibility includes  that  of  non-creation.”  — F.  Mohr. 

"Although  in  the  course  of  ages  catastrophes  have  taken  place  in  the  heavens, 
and  still  take  place,  although  ancient  systems  dissolve  and  new  systems  are 
built  up  out  of  their  ruins,  yet  the  molecules  of  which  these  systems  consist, 
the  foundations  of  the  material  universe,  remain  unbroken  and  uninjured.” — 
C.  Maxwell. 

“ Imperial  Caesar,  dead  and  turned  to  clay, 

Might  stop  a hole  to  keep  the  wind  away ; 

Oh,  that  that  earth,  which  kept  the  world  in  awe, 

Should  patch  a wall  to  expel  the  winter’s  flaw  ! ” 

Shakespeare. 

WITH  these  words,  the  outcome  of  the  keenest 
perceptive  ability,  the  great  Briton  pointed  out, 
three  hundred  years  ago,  a scientific  truth,  which 
despite  its  clearness  and  simplicity,  despite  its  unanswera- 
bleness, has  not  yet  attained  that  general  recognition 
which  is  its  due.  Matter  as  such  is  indestructible,  it  can- 
not be  annihilated  ; no  grain  of  dust  in  the  universe  can 
vanish  from,  and  none  can  enter  it.  It  is  the  greatest  ser- 
vice rendered  to  us  by  chemistry  that  for  the  last  hundred 
years  it  has  taught  us  this  indubitable  fact,  that  the  un- 
ceasing changes  and  transformations  of  phenomena,  which 
pass  daily  before  our  eyes,  the  formation  and  destruction 

04) 


IMMORTALITY  OF  MATTER. 


15 


of  organic  and  inorganic  forms  and  figures,  do  not  consist 
of  the  formation  of  matter  previously  non-existent,  nor  of 
the  destruction  of  matter  then  present,  as  was  generally 
thought  in  earlier  times,  but  that  this  change  consists  in 
nothing  save  in  a continual  and  unbroken  rotation  of  the 
same  substance,  of  which  the  mass  and  the  quality  remain 
unalterable  and  identical  for  all  ages.  By  the  aid  of  the 
balance  matter  has  been  pursued  through  its  manifold  and 
hidden  ways,  and  it  has  always  been  found  to  issue  from  a 
combination  the  same  in  mass  and  in  properties  as  when  it 
entered  into  it.  The  calculations  which  have  been  founded 
on  this  law  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  have  proved 
correct  throughout.  We  burn  a piece  of  wood,  and  at  the 
first  superficial  glance  it  seems  as  if  its  particles  had  per- 
ished or  been  destroyed  in  fire  and  smoke.  But  this  de- 
struction is  apparent  only,  for  the  balance  of  the  chemist 
tells  us  that  not  only  have  that  wood  and  its  constituent 
particles  lost  nothing,  but  that  on  the  contrary  the  total 
weight  of  the  constituents  of  the  wood  has  increased  : it 
shows  us  that  the  products,  gathered  and  weighed,  con- 
sisting of  the  gases  evolved  in  combustion  and  the  ashes 
left  behind,  not  only  contain  all  the  matter  of  which  the 
wood  originally  consisted,  although  in  a different  form  and 
composition,  but  that  in  addition  other  materials  are  con- 
tained therein,  with  which  the  constituents  of  the  wood 
united  during  the  combustion.  In  a word,  the  wood  by 
the  occurrence  of  combustion  has  increased,  not  diminished 
the  total  weight  of  its  constituents.  ‘ ‘ The  carbon  of  the 
wood,”  says  Karl  Vogt,  “ is  imperishable,  it  is  eternal  and 
therefore  indestructible,  as  are  the  hydrogen  and  oxygen 
with  which  it  is  combined  in  the  wood.  This  combination 
and  form  into  which  it  enters  are  destructible,  but  the  ma- 
terial perishes  not.”  “ Carbon,”  says  Czolbe,  (Neue  Dar- 
siellung  des  Sensualismus  — New  Exposition  of  Sensation- 
alism — 1855)  ‘ 1 which  we  find  in  the  spar  crystal,  the  wood 
fibre,  or  the  muscle,  can  after  the  destruction  of  those 
bodies  enter  into  other  combination  of  different  appear- 


i6 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


ances,  but  as  an  element  it  can  never  be  changed  and  never 
be  destroyed.” 

If  we  bury  a dead  body  we  find  years  afterwards  nothing 
in  the  place  save  a heap  of  bones  mixed  with  earth.  The 
sight  awakens  the  belief  that  there  is  nothing  more  left  of 
the  former  constituents  of  the  body  committed  to  the 
ground  beyond  these  remains,  but  science  tells  us  that  in 
reality  nothing,  not'  even  the  smallest  particle  thereof,  has 
been  lost,  but  that  the  whole  change  consists  in  this,  that 
the  elements  have  left  their  former  combinations  and  have 
returned  to  the  rotation  of  matter,  to-day  in  this,  to-morrow 
in  that  form  to  pursue  their  endless  course.  With  full 
justification  then  did  the  bold  fancy  of  the  British  poet  fol- 
low the  matter  which  once  helped  to  build  up  the  body  of 
imperial  Caesar  to  the  point  at  which,  in  the  shape  of  earth 
or  mortar,  it  patched  up  a hole  in  a wall. 

With  each  breath  that  passes  from  our  lips  we  exhale 
part  of  the  food  we  eat  and  of  the  water  we  drink.  They 
change  so  quickly  that  we  may  well  say  that  in  a space  of 
from  four  to  six  weeks  we  are  materially  quite  different 
and  new  beings  — with  the  exception  of  the  skeletal  organs 
of  the  body,  which  are  firmer  and  therefore  less  liable 
to  change.  The  atoms,  or  the  smallest  particles  of  the 
chemical  elements,  change,  but  the  manner  of  combination 
remains  the  same.  Those  atoms  are  themselves  unalterable, 
indestructible  ; to-day  in  this,  to-morrow  in  that  combina- 
tion, they  build  up  by  the  variety  of  their  positions  or  their 
unions  the  countless  different  forms  in  which  matter  presents 
itself  to  us,  speeding  from  one  to  another  in  a ceaseless 
change  and  flow.  At  the  same  time,  the  quantity  of  atoms 
of  a simple  element  remains  on  the  whole  unchanged  ; not 
one  of  these  particles  of  matter  can  form  itself  anew  nor 
add  to  itself ; none  that  has  once  existed  can  disappear  from 
being  ; none  can  change  its  nature.  An  atom  of  oxygen,  of 
nitrogen,  of  hydrogen,  of  iron,  is  everywhere  and  under  all 
conditions  one  and  the  same  thing,  endued  with  the  same 
inseparable  properties  or  energies,  and  can  never  to  all 


immortality  of  matter.  17 

eternity  become  anything  else.  Be  it  where  it  may,  it  will 
be  the  same  being  everywhere  ; however  different  the  com- 
pound may  be,  it  will  issue  from  it  on  its  breaking-up  the 
same  as  it  was  when  it  entered  into  combination.  But  it  can 
never  originate  anew  nor  vanish  out  of  existence,  it  can  only 
change  its  combinations.  The  same  atom  which  to-day 
helps  to  form  the  haughty  mien  of  a sovereign  or  a hero, 
may  perchance  lie  to-morrow  as  the  street-dust  beneath  his 
feet.  The  same  atom  which  to-day  drones  in  the  brain  of 
a sheep,  may  perchance  to-morrow  aid  the  thinking  of  a 
philosopher  or  of  a poet.  The  same  atom  which  to-day 
forms  part  of  dirt  or  manure,  may  perchance  to-morrow 
sleep  with  its  fellows  on  the  flower-bud  as  fragrant  bloom. 

“A  simple  elemental  atom  ” says  B.  Stewart,  “is  really 
an  immortal  being  and  rejoices  in  the  power  of  remaining 
unchanged  and  unmoved  in  its  being  under  the  mightiest 
attacks  which  may  be  levelled  against  it  ; it  is  probably  in 
a condition  of  ceaseless  movement  and  change  of  form,  but 
remains  none  the  less  evermore  the  same.” 

“An  atom  of  hydrogen,”  says  the  anonymous  author  of 
an  essay  on  the  Philosophy  of  Chemistry  ( Revue  Philosoph- 
ique,  1880,  No.  6)  “will  ever  remain  a hydrogen  atom,  to 
whatever  tests  it  may  be  submitted.  If  it  enters  into  any 
combination,  or  leaves  it  again,  it  remains  still  the  same,  it 
always  possesses  the  same  properties.  The  necessary  con- 
sequence of  this  is  that  the  indestructible  atom  cannot  be 
created.” 

This  eternal  and  ceaseless  ebb  and  flow  of  minute 
particles,  changeless  in  themselves,  has  been  called  trans- 
mutation of  matter  by  scientists,  and  science  offers  countless 
examples  and  proofs  thereof.  It  is  enough  to  remark  of 
the  changes  and  cycles  through  which  matter  passes  in  the 
Universe,  and  which  man  has  partly  followed  by  balance 
and  measuring-rod,  millionfold  and  ten  millionfold,  that 
they  are  without  end  and  limit.  Dissolution  and  generation, 
destruction  and  re-formation  clasp  hands  everywhere  in  an 
endless  circle.  In  the  bread  that  we  eat,  in  the  air  that  we 


i8 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


breathe,  we  draw  in  the  matter  that  once  built  up  the  bodies 
of  our  forefathers  ; nay,  we  ourselves  give  every  day  a 
portion  of  the  matter  forming  our  bodies  to  the  outside 
world  and  shortly  after  we  re-take  this  substance  or  matter 
similarly  given  off  by  our  neighbors.  Of  the  English  we 
can  literally  say  that  they  gratefully  repay  their  forefathers 
who  fell  fighting  for  them  and  their  freedom  against  the 
French  Empire,  by  eating  them  as  daily  bread,  for  the  bones 
from  the  battlefield  of  Waterloo  were  carted  off  in  great 
quantities  to  England  for  manuring  the  fields,  the  yield  of 
which  was  very  much  increased  thereby. 

But,  as  we  have  said,  no  further  proof  is  needed  to 
demonstrate  that  matter  is  indestructible,  and  that  it  cannot 
therefore  be  created.  How  can  that  be  created  which  can- 
not be  annihilated  ? Matter  must  have  been  eternal,  is 
eternal,  and  shall  be  eternal.  “ Matter  is  eternal  ; it 
changes  only  its  forms.” — Rossmcessler. 

The  eternity  of  matter,  or  of  substance,  appears  also 
from  the  following  consideration  : Science  teaches  us  that 
an  absolute  vacuum  cannot  exist,  and  never  can  have  ex- 
isted, while  the  infinity  of  space  is  set  down  by  reason  as 
axiomatic.  Hence  follows  necessarily  the -conclusion  that 
space  must  have  been  filled  with  matter,  and  that  this  must 
have  existed  from  eternity.  It  follows,  in  addition,  as  was 
shown  in  the  preceding  chapter,  that  the  universe  must  be 
uncreated.  A beginning  and  an  end  of  the  universe  are  as 
such  inconceivable,  and  must  be  relegated  to  the  limbo  of 
spiritual  or  theological  fancies. 

The  phrases  ‘‘mortal  body”  and  ‘‘immortal  spirit,” 
which  have  been  repeated  ad  nauseam , are  misnomers 
altogether.  Exact  thought  might  possibly  reverse  the 
adjectives.  The  body  in  its  individual  form  or  shape  is 
indeed  mortal,  but  it  is  not  so  in  its  constituent  particles. 
Not  in  death  only  but  throughout  life  it  changes  un- 
ceasingly, as  we  have  seen  ; but  in  the  wider  sense  it  is 
immortal,  since  not  the  smallest  particle  of  it  can  be  anni- 
hilated. On  the  other  hand  we  see  that  what  we  call 


Immortality  of  matter. 


19 

spirit,  soul,  consciousness,  disappears  with  the  cessation  of 
the  individual  combination  of  matter  ; and  it  must  appear 
to  the  unprejudiced  mind  that  this  action  having  been 
brought  about  by  peculiar  and  very  complicated  unions, 
must  come  to  an  end  with  its  cause,  that  is  to  say,  with  the 
cessation  of  those  peculiar  combinations. 

To-day  the  indestructibility  or  permanence  of  matter  is 
a scientific  fact  firmly  established  and  no  longer  to  be 
denied.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  former  philoso- 
phers and  thinkers  also  possessed  a knowledge  of  this 
important  truth,  although  in  an  incomplete  form  and  rather 
as  a presentiment  than  as  a scientifically  known  and  estab- 
lished certainty.  The  experimental  proof  thereof  could 
only  be  yielded  by  our  balances  and  retorts. 

Sebastian  Frank , a German,  who  lived  in  1528,  says  : 
“Matter  was  from  the  beginning  in  God,  and  is  hence 
eternal  and  unending.  The  earth,  the  dust,  every  created 
thing  indeed  perishes  ; but  we  cannot  say  that  that  perishes 
out  of  which  they  are  created.  Substance  abides  eternally. 
A thing  falls  into  dust,  but  out  of  the  dust  is  developed 
another.  The  earth,  as  Pliny  says,  is  a phoenix  and  re- 
mains once  for  all.  When  it  becomes  old  it  burns  itself  to 
ashes  that  out  of  them  a young  phoenix  may  arise,  the 
former  but  rejuvenated.” 

Yet  more  directly  do  Italian  philosophers  of  the  Middle 
Ages  express  this  idea.  Bernard  Telesius  (1580)  says  : 

“ Bodily  matter  is  alike  in  all  things  and  remains  ever 
the  same  ; dark  sluggish  matter  can  neither  be  increased 
nor  diminished.  ” 

Finally,  Giordano  Bruno , (who  was  burned  alive  in 
Rome  in  1600),  remarks  : 

“ That  which  was  seed  at  first,  becomes  grass,  hence  the 
ear,  then  bread,  nutritive  juice,  blood,  animal  seed,  em- 
bryo, man,  corpse,  then  again  earth,  stone,  or  other  min- 
eral, and  so  forth.  Herein  we  recognize  therefore  a thing 
which  changes  into  all  these  things  and  essentially  remains 
ever  one  and  the  same.  Nothing  appears  to  be  really 


20 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


durable,  eternal,  and  worthy  of  the  name  of  a principle 
save  matter  only.  Matter  as  the  Absolute  includes  within 
itself  all  forms  and  dimensions.  But  the  infinity  of  forms 
under  which  matter  appears  is  not  accepted  by  her  from 
another  nor  as  it  were  only  in  outward  appearance,  but  she 
brings  them  forth  from  herself  and  bears  them  from  her 
own  womb.  Where  we  say  there  is  death,  there  is  only 
the  outgoing  towards  new  life,  a loosing  of  one  union 
which  is  the  binding  into  a new.” 

But  a yet  far  more  remote  age  was  not  unacquainted 
with  the  outlines  of  this  truth,  which  now  appears  likely  to 
become  the  corner-stone  of  every  exact  or  experimental 
philosophy.  Empedocles , a Greek  philosopher  who  lived 
450  years  B.  C.,  says  : “ They  are  children  or  persons  of 
narrow  views  who  imagine  that  anything  originates  which 
before  was  non-existent,  or  that  anything  can  wholly  die  or 
perish.”  And  again  before  him  had  the  Greek  philosopher 
Anaxagoras  (B.  C.  500-428)  taught  : ‘‘  Existence  in  space 
neither  increases  nor  diminishes  ; ” while  his  contemporary 
Democritus , the  famous  parent  of  the  materialistic  philoso- 
phy of  the  old  world  and  of  the  theory  of  atomicity,  formu- 
lated very  plainly  the  hypothesis  of  the  indestructibility  of 
matter  and  defined  the  position  as  follows  : “ Out  of 
nothing  arises  nothing  : nothing  that  is  can  be  annihilated. 
All  change  is  only  the  union  and  separation  of  particles. 
The  varieties  of  all  things  depend  on  the  varieties  of  the 
atoms  in  number,  size,  form,  and  arrangement,”  etc. 


Immortality  of  Force. 


“In  Nature  nothing  is  lost,  nor  Matter,  nor  Force,  nor  mechanical  work.” — 
P.  A.  Secchi. 

11  No  zephyr  breathes,  no  wavelet  ripples  on  the  bank,  but  the  movement  thrills 
through  all  space.” — H.  Tuttle. 

“ Out  of  nothing  no  energy  can  arise.”—  Liebig. 

"Motion,  Heat,  Light,  Magnetism,  Electricity,  chemical  affinity  pass  one  into  the 
other;  they  are  only  different  modes  of  one  and  the  same  original  energy  and 
each  if  not  directly  can  yet  indirectly  be  converted  back  again  into  the  old 
form  out  of  which  it  has  been  evoked.”—  Du  Prel. 

EQUALLY  uncreatable,  equally  indelible,  equally  im- 
perishable, equally  immortal  as  Matter  is  the  Force 
bound  up  with  it.  United  in  infinite  amount  to  the 
infinite  mass  of  Matter,  in  most  intimate  union  therewith, 
and  like  matter,  it  runs  in  an  unresting  never  ending  circle 
and  emerges  from  each  mode  or  union  exactly  the  same  in 
amount  as  when  it  entered  in.  As  it  is  an  indubitable  fact 
that  Matter  can  be  neither  newly  created  nor  annihilated, 
but  only  changed  in  form,  so  must  it  be  accepted  as  an 
absolutely  certain  experience  that  there  is  not  a single  in- 
stance in  which  a force  has  been  brought  out  of  nothing  nor 
reduced  to  nothing,  in  other  words  born  nor  annihilated. 
In  all  cases  in  which  forces  make  their  appearance  they  can 
be  traced  back  again  to  their  sources , that  is  it  can  be  shown 
out  of  what  other  forces  or  energies  a given  amount  of  force 
has  been  obtained  directly  or  through  transmutations. 
This  transmutation  does  not  proceed  arbitrarily,  but  ac- 
cording to  definite  equivalents  or  weight-numbers,  so  that 
the  minutest  amount  of  force  can  no  more  be  lost  than  the 
minutest  amount  of  matter  in  the  transformation  of  matter. 


22 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


While  the  indestructibility  or  permanence  of  Matter  has 
been  a known  and  settled  fact  for  about  a century  past,  this 
is  not  equally  the  case  with  the  indestructibility  or  con- 
servation of  Force,  which,  despite  its  great  simplicity  and 
ever  self-evident  character,  has  only  been  observed  by 
scientists  during  the  last  forty  years  — and  not  without 
almost  insuperable  obstacles  to  general  recognition  being 
opposed  at  first  to  the  new  truth.  We  call  it  simple  and 
self-evident,  because  it  follows  immediately  and  without 
further  argument  on  the  simple  consideration  of  the  relation- 
ship between  cause  and  effect,  and  because  a solitary 
instance  in  which  the  conservation  of  Energy  failed,  must 
have  brought  about  the  final  stoppage  of  all  motion  in  the 
universe  ; in  the  second  place  because  the  law  of  the  inde- 
structibility of  Matter  necessarily  includes  within  itself  the 
indestructibility  of  Force.  When  Lavoisier , in  the  year 
1774,  discovered  the  nature  of  combustion  and  put  oxygen 
in  the  place  of  phlogiston  or  combustible  air,  the  theory  of 
the  indestructibility  of  Matter  and  of  the  eternity  or  indelible 
nature  of  atoms  was  proved  simply  from  the  results  given 
by  the  balance.  Had  the  same  theory  of  the  relationship 
between  Matter  and  Force  been  known  then  as  it  is  now,  the 
thesis  of  the  indestructibility  of  Force  would  at  once  have 
been  recognized  as  a necessary  consequence.  For  if  forces 
in  the  most  general  sense  represent  the  properties  of  Matter, 
and  if  by  means  of  them  motion  and  change  enter  into  life, 
then  it  is  self-evident  that  the  totality  of  forces  present  in 
Nature,  whether  static  or  dynamic,  must  also  remain  the 
same,  that  is  can  neither  be  increased  nor  lessened.  But 
since  scientists  are  a suspicious  folk  and  will  only  accept  that 
for  truth  which  can  be  demonstrated  by  experiment  or  by 
calculation,  and  since  it  is  far  more  difficult  to  measure  and 
calculate  forces  than  to  weigh  matter,  so  the  rotation  of 
forces,  analogous  as  it  was  to  and  implied  in  the  rotation  of 
Matter,  remained  hidden  for  more  than  half  a century,  until 
in  the  year  1837  F Mohr  distinctly  noted  it  in  his  treatise 
“ On  the  nature  of  Heat."  He  was  followed  in  the  year 


IMMORTALITY  OF  FORCE. 


23 


1842  by  R.  Mayer , who  first  calculated  the  mechanical 
equivalent  of  Heat,  and  later  on  by  the  Englishman  Joule 
(1843 — 49)  who,  without  knowing  of  his  predecessors, 
carried  out  during  several  years  experiments  on  the  relation 
between  Heat  and  Work,  or  Heat  and  Motion,  and  by  these 
experiments  raised  the  connexion  of  these  forces  to  an  in- 
disputable theorem.  But  not  until  between  1850  and  i860 
and  a long  time  after  the  publication  of  the  first  edition  of 
this  work,  this  theorem  was  recognized  and  demonstrated 
as  regards  the  remaining  forces ; it  rejoices  to-day  in  an 
uncontested  recognition,  so  that,  as  F Mohr  says,  it  has 
become  the  polar  star  whereby  scientists  now  direct  their 
course. 

According  to  this  theory,  no  motion  in  Nature  arises 
from  nothing  nor  passes  into  nothing,  and  as  in  the  material 
universe  each  individual  form  can  only  realize  its  existence 
by  drawing  upon  a vast  and  never  changing  store  of  matter, 
so  each  motion  forms  the  basis  of  its  existence  out  of  an 
incommensurable,  never  changing  store  of  force  and  returns 
this  borrowed  quantity  of  energy  sooner  or  later  in  some 
fashion  or  other  to  the  Whole.  A mode  of  motion  may 
indeed  be  latent , that  is  to  say,  it  may  pass  for  the  moment 
into  apparent  hiding,  but  it  is  not  therefore  lost,  but  has 
only  passed  into  a qualitatively  different,  yet  quantitatively 
equivalent  state  of  force,  out  of  which  it  again  emerges  in 
some  way  or  other.  In  thus  emerging,  if  it  has  changed , 
it  has  done  nothing  more  than  alter  its  form.  For  Force 
may  assume  very  varied  forms  in  the  Universe,  but  remains 
still  essentially  the  same.  These  different  forms  can  pass 
one  into  another,  but,  as  already  intimated,  without  loss 
and  according  to  the  fundamental  law  of  equivalents  or 
equal  values,  so  that  the  total  sum  of  energy  present  neither 
increases  nor  diminishes,  and  only  the  totals  of  the  different 
forces  are  changed. 

“The  existing  amount  of  F orce  ’ ’ — says  the  author  of  an 
essay  on  the  law  of  the  Conservation  of  Energy  in  Wester- 
mann’s  “ Unsere  Tage" — “ remains  changeless.  We  can 


24 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


change  its  effects  at  our  pleasure,  but  only  qualitatively  ; in 
its  quantity  no  increase  nor  diminution  is  in  any  fashion 
possible.” 

The  science  of  Physics,  or  of  the  system  of  forces,  of 
their  changes  and  transmutations,  makes  us  acquainted 
with  seven  or  eight  different  forces,  which  in  concert  with 
matter  and  indivisibly  united  with  it  “form  and  build  up 
the  universe.”  These  are  : Gravitation  or  the  general  at- 
traction between  masses,  including  mechanical  energy, 
Heat,  Light,  Electricity,  Magnetism,  Affinity  or  chemical 
relationship,  Cohesion  and  Adhesion  or  molecular  at- 
traction, Molecular  Force  — among  which  are  generally 
reckoned  Weight,  Cohesion  and  Affinity  as  well  as  the  so- 
called  latent  or  static  energies,  and  the  rest  as  dynamic 
energies  or  as  atomic  and  molecular  motion.  These  forces 
can  be  transmuted  into  one  another  almost  without  ex- 
ception and  in  such  a fashion  that  in  the  transmutation 
nothing  is  lost,  but  that  the  newly  arising  force  is  equiva- 
lent or  equal  to  the  original  one  and  can  perform  new  work 
as  an  independent  energy.  In  the  universe  from  which  an 
inexhaustible  store  of  energy  comes  to  us,  the  forces  are 
connected  with  the  heavenly  bodies,  mostly  under  the  forms 
of  light  and  heat  in  the  sun  and  the  fixed  stars;  as  mechanical 
energy  in  the  planets  revolving  round  their  central  orb,  and 
as  chemical  difference,  cohesion  and  magnetism  in  the 
ponderable  materials  of  the  bodies  in  the  universe. 

Of  the  change  or  the  so-called  transmutatio7i  of  energy 
we  here  adduce  some  examples  : 

By  combustion  or  combination  of  various  chemical  ele- 
ments, light  and  heat  are  evolved.  Heat  may  further  be 
changed  as  steam  into  mechanical  force,  as  for  instance  by 
being  used  in  the  steam-engine  ; and  mechanical  energy 
can  again  be  reconverted  into  heat  by  friction,  and  in  the 
magneto-electric  machine  it  can  be  re  transmuted  into 
Heat,  Electricity,  Light,  and  chemical  difference.  One  of 
the  commonest  transmutations  of  energy  is  that  of  heat 
into  mechanical  force  and  vice  versa.  If  two  pieces  of 


IMMORTALITY  OF  FORCE. 


25 


wood  are  rubbed  together,  heat  and  fire  are  produced. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  a steam-engine  be  heated,  then  heat 
in  turn  is  transmuted  into  friction  and  motion.  The  change 
of  heat  into  mechanical  motion  and  vice  versd  may  be  most 
strikingly  demonstrated  by  a railway  train.  The  heat 
obtained  by  combustion  in  the  engine  changes  into  the 
movement  of  the  carriages.  But  what  happens  when  the 
train  stops  ? Its  mechanical  energy  cannot  be  destroyed, 
it  can  only  be  changed.  The  brakes  are  put  on,  and  the 
train  is  thereby  brought  to  a standstill,  the  motion  being 
transmuted  into  heat,  as  is  proved  by  the  smoke  and 
sparks  caused  by  the  friction. 

While  by  the  combustion  of  coal  in  the  steam-engine, 
chemical  action  is  transmuted  into  heat,  which  in  its  turn 
is  transformed  again  into  mechanical  energy,  so  in  reverse 
manner  can  we  transmute  mechanical  energy  into  heat  if 
we  make  it  drive  a wheel  which  works  a massive  wooden 
cone  within  a hollow  metal  one  that  fits  closely  round  it. 
This  becomes  heated  to  such  an  extent  that  we  can  thus 
warm  a room  by  means  of  the  energy  obtained  from  a 
waterfall,  a river  or  a windmill. 

In  gunpowder,  unsatisfied  chemical  affinities  lie  side  by 
side.  So  soon  as  the  igniting  spark  reaches  it,  the  chemical 
differences  are  compensated,  and  heat,  light,  and  mechani- 
cal energy  are  given  forth. 

In  the  voltaic  pile  the  chemical  action  between  zinc  and 
oxygen  is  transmuted  into  a current  of  electricity,  and  this 
may  appear  at  the  poles  as  heat  and  light,  or  again  as 
chemical  action  in  the  voltameter. 

In  the  electric  machine,  the  mechanical  energy  of  the 
arms  turning  the  disc,  which  itself  results  from  an  equaliza- 
tion of  chemical  difference  (respiration),  is  changed  into 
electrical  tension  and  current,  and  this  can  again  appear,  ac- 
cording to  circumstances,  as  attraction  (mechanical  energy) 
or  as  light,  heat,  and  chemical  action. 

The  English  philosopher,  W.  R.  Grove,  has  constructed 
an  apparatus  by  means  of  which,  using  light  as  the  original 


26 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


force,  he  can  develop  simultaneously  Jive  other  forms  of 
force,  viz.  chemical  activity,  electricity,  magnetism,  heat 
and  motion.  It  may  indeed  be  accepted  as  a law  that 
when  a certain  energy  is  evolved  from  a body,  all  other 
energies  also  manifest  themselves  as  active  therein.  If,  for 
instance,  antimonious  sulphate  is  electrified,  it  becomes  at 
the  same  time  magnetic,  warm,  radiant  (if  the  excitation  is 
carried  over  a certain  limit),  moved  by  extension  and 
chemically  active  by  decomposition,  so  that  six  different 
forces  thus  become  active.  Similar  phenomena  are  seen 
in  the  electrification  of  metals  ; it  is  only  doubtful  whether 
with  them  there  is  any  chemical  decomposition. 

In  all  these  processes  of  transmutation,  the  calculated 
amount  of  force  spent  on  one  side  agrees  most  accurately 
with  that  which  is  spent  on  the  other.  By  means  of  an 
electric  current,  for  instance,  water  can  be  resolved  into  its 
constituents,  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  and  so  much  of  these 
two  gases  is  set  free  that  by  their  combustion  exactly  as 
much  heat  is  evolved  as  forms  the  equivalent  of  the  electric 
current  which  was  transmuted. 

In  the  impact  of  moving  bodies,  mechanical  energy  is 
generally  changed  into  heat,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  iron 
heated  by  the  smith’s  hammer  or  in  two  inelastic  balls  (as 
of  lead)  impelled  against  each  other,  which  become  heated 
by  the  impact,  whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  two  elastic 
bodies  (as  billiard  balls)  do  not  become  heated  because 
they  utilize  the  mechanical  force  imparted  to  them  in  the 
rebound.  Or,  when  a cannon-ball  strikes  the  side  of  an 
armored  ship,  a flash  and  a visible  glow  mark  the  spot 
struck,  for  the  impact  has  changed  the  motion  of  the  ball 
into  intense  heat,  or  the  total  motion  has  become  heat.  If 
two  heavenly  bodies  were  to  rush  against  each  other — an 
occurrence  which  must  doubtless  have  often  happened  in 
the  past,  as  it  will  yet  happen  — then  a quantity  of  heat 
would  be  liberated  by  the  shock,  sufficient  to  reduce  the 
total  mass  of  those  bodies  to  their  original  condition,  i.  e. 
to  convert  them  into  vapor.  Like  impact,  the  mechanical 


IMMORTALITY  OF  FORCE. 


27 


force  of  pressure  or  condensation  develops  heat,  as  may 
easily  be  observed  in  the  pneumatic  tinder-box  or  in  coin- 
ing works.  All  molecules  of  a body,  as  they  approach 
each  other,  set  free  the  heat  or  energy  which  they  before 
used  in  repulsion  — whereby  heat  is  evolved.  It  is  thought, 
not  improbably,  that  all  the  light  and  heat  present  in  the 
universe  arise  from  this  source,  and  chiefly  the  most  usual 
form  in  which  energy  is  given  forth,  viz.  the  light  and 
warmth  of  the  central  suns.  All  energies  on  this  earth, 
whether  in  the  organic  or  inorganic  worlds,  can  and  must 
directly  or  indirectly  be  derived  from  the  beams  of  the  sun. 
The  flowing  water,  the  driving  wind,  the  passing  clouds, 
the  rolling  thunder  and  the  flashing  lightning,  the  falling 
rain,  snow,  dew,  frost,  or  hail,  the  growth  of  plants,  the 
warmth  and  motion  of  animal  and  human  bodies,  the  com- 
bustion of  wood,  of  coal,  etc.,  etc.,  may  be  referred  without 
argument  to  the  sun.  By  burning  wood  or  coal,  the  total 
amount  of  the  vanished  sunshine  laid  up  in  these  substances 
may  again  be  evolved.  The  force  which  urges  forward  the 
locomotive,  is  a ray  of  sunshine  converted  into  work  by  a 
machine,  just  the  same  as  the  work  which  creates  thoughts 
in  the  brain  of  the  thinker,  or  forges  nails  by  the  arm  of 
the  smith.* 

The  tremendous  force  with  which  the  tunnel  of  Mont 

*In  1857,  Mr.  Murray,  of  London  published  a biography  of  the  famous  English 
engineer  George  Stephenson,  born  1781,  died  1848,  by  Smiles,  from  which  we  take 
the  following  interesting  account:  "On  Sunday,  just  when  the  company  had 
returned  from  church  and  were  standing  on  the  terrace  overlooking  the  railway 
station  (Drayton,)  a train  rushed  by,  leaving  a long  line  of  white  steam  behind. 

' Now,’  ’ said  Stephenson  to  Buckland,  the  well-known  theological  geologist,  "can 
you  tell  me  what  power  moves  that  train?" — ‘Why.’’  replied  the  other,  " I sup- 
pose it  is  one  of  your  big  engines.” — "But  what  moves  the  engine?” — " O, 
probably  one  of  your  stout  Newcastle  engine-drivers.” — " What  do  you  say  to  the 
light  of  the  sun?”— “What  do  you  mean?” — " Nothing  else  moves  the  engine,” 
said  the  great  engineer,  "it  is  light  which  for  thousands  of  years  has  accumulated 
in  the  earth  — light  which  was  inhaled  by  plants,  that  these  during  the  time  of 
their  growth  might  fix  the  carbon,  and  which  now,  after  having  for  thousands  of 
years  been  buried  in  the  coal-beds  of  the  earth,  is  again  brought  forth  and  set 
free,  to  serve  the  great  purposes  of  mankind,  as  here  in  this  engine.”  Assuredly 
a most  remarkable  utterance,  considering  the  time  in  which  it  was  made,  and  one 
instantaneously  illumining  a new  field  of  science. 


28 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


Cenis  or  of  St.  Gothard  was  driven  through  the  highest 
mountains,  is  nothing  more  than  solar  heat  converted  into 
mechanical  motion.  ‘ ‘ The  heat  wherewith  we  warm  our 
dwellings,”  says  Liebig,  “ is  sun-heat,  the  light  wherewith 
we  turn  night  into  day  is  light  borrowed  from  the  sun.’  ’ 
The  light  which  is  sent  by  suns  to  the  non-transparent 
planets  illuminated  by  them,  does  not  perish  on  these,  but 
is  converted  into  heat,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  in- 
creased heat  appears  as  light  from  the  heated  bodies,  as 
may  be  easily  observed  by  heating  a bar  of  iron  above  a 
certain  temperature. 

Magnetism  can  be  manifested  in  the  magneto-electric 
machine  as  an  electric  current,  and  this  again  in  various 
other  forms. 

Gravitation  appears  directly  as  mechanical  energy  and 
can  then  as  such  be  converted  into  all  the  forms  already 
mentioned.  In  every  pendulum  clock  it  can  be  seen  that 
weight  not  only  can  be  changed  into  motion,  but  also  into 
heat,  since  the  parts  of  the  clock  are  warmed  by  the 
friction. 

Under  such  circumstances  a given  amount  of  energy  is 
seldom  completely  and  perfectly  changed  into  another,  but 
a part  of  it  is  either  transmuted  into  other  energies  and  is 
consequently  not  observed,  or  it  is  not  transmuted  at  all. 
In  the  steam-engine,  for  instance,  a large,  indeed  by  far 
the  greatest  part  of  the  heat  produced  is  not  changed  into 
mechanical  force,  but  emerges  as  heat  with  the  escaping 
vapors  or  the  condensation  water  or  by  the  cooling  of  the 
parts  of  the  machinery.  In  the  fire-arm  it  appears  as  if  a 
part  of  the  mechanical  energy  were  lost ; but  it  is  only 
apparently  lost  as  to  the  effect  or  intended  object,  because, 
in  the  first  place,  it  warms  the  gun-barrel,  and  secondly  is 
changed  into  the  report.  In  similar  fashion  in  an  electric 
machine  a part  of  the  force  is  lost  by  being  imparted  as 
heat  to  the  disc,  the  rubbers,  etc.  The  word  “lost”  is, 
however,  a misleading  one,  for  in  all  these  and  similar 
cases  not  the  smallest  quantity  of  force  is  absolutely  lost  or 


IMMORTALITY  OF  FORCE. 


29 


lost  to  the  universe,  but  is  only  lost  to  the  immediate  object 
and  therefore  seems  to  have  vanished  from  the  superficial 
glance.  In  reality  the  excited  energy  has  only  taken  a 
different  shape,  the  amount  of  which  must  be  equal  to  that 
of  the  former.  In  general,  all  forms  of  force  and  motion  can 
be  completely  and  without  loss  transmuted  into  heat,  while 
heat  in  each  case  can  only  be  partially  changed  into  the 
other  modes.  The  examples  by  which  this  truth  may  be 
particularly  demonstrated  are  countless  in  Nature  ; they 
may  all  be  summed  up  in  the  proposition  : Force  can  be 
neither  created  nor  destroyed — a proposition  from  which 
follows  the  indestructibility  of  force  and  the  impossibility 
of  its  having  as  such  either  a beginning  or  an  end.  The 
result  deduced  from  this  newly  discovered  physical  truth  is 
the  same  as  that  deduced  from  the  indestructibility  of  mat- 
ter ; the  twain  together  have  built  up  from  eternity  and 
will  build  up  for  evermore  that  totality  of  phenomena  which 
we  call  the  Universe.  The  “ circulation  of  force”  must  be 
placed  side  by  side  with  the  “ circulation  of  matter  ” as  its 
necessary  corollary  and  its  necessary  completion,  and  it 
teaches  us  that  nothing  originates  and  nothing  perishes, 
and  that  the  secret  of  Nature  lies  in  an  eternal  self-sustained 
circle,  wherein  cause  and  effect  are  united  without  begin- 
ning and  without  end.  That  only  can  be  eternal  which  has 
been  from  eternity,  and  that  which  is  eternal,  cannot  be 
created  or  made. 

“ Everywhere  is  change,  nowhere  is  annihilation.  In 
the  organic  as  well  as  in  the  physical  world,  in  living 
as  well  as  in  dead  bodies,  there  is  everlasting  motion. 
Absolute  repose  is  found  nowhere.  All  is  changing,  and 
from  the  mould  of  the  dust  new  life  arises  unceasingly.” 
— Tyndall. 

In  judging  this  newly  discovered  physical  truth  and  its 
consequences,  it  is  certainly  very  interesting  to  find  that 
Voltaire,  known  to  be  bitterly  opposed  to  the  teaching  of 
his  materialistic  countrymen  and  contemporaries,  required 
nothing  further  from  them  to  convince  him  than  exactly 


3^ 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


this  proof  of  the  conservation  of  the  energies  of  Nature. 
“ The  materialists,”  he  says  in  his  Traite  de  Mataphysique , 
Chap.  II,  “ must  maintain  that  motion  is  inseparable  from 
matter.  They  are  therefore  further  compelled  to  maintain 
that  motion  can  never  be  increased  or  diminished  ; they 
must  assert  that  a hundred  thousand  men  set  in  motion 
and  a hundred  canons  fired  at  one  time,  introduce  no  new 
motion  into  Nature.”  This  fact,  which  Voltaire  held  to 
be  so  impossible  that  he  thereby  thought  to  demonstrate 
the  emptiness  of  the  materialistic  views,  is  to-day  completely 
proved.  How  many  similar  arguments  opposed  to  so- 
called  Materialism  will  meet  with  a similar  fate  in  days  to 
come  ! 


Infinity  of  Matter. 


“ Hence  we  recognize  that  it  will  never  be  possible  to  decide  the  dimensions  of 
the  final  particles  of  matter ; our  ideas  are  shut  in  between  two  infinities, 
between  the  infinite  vastness  of  planetary  space  and  the  infinite  minuteness 
of  molecular  structure.” — Secchi. 

“ Indeed  the  conception  of  the  infinitely  minute  is  as  little  capable  of  being  grasp- 
ed by  us  as  is  that  of  the  infinitely  great.  Despite  this  the  admission  of  the 
reality  of  the  infinitude  both  in  the  direction  of  greatness  and  of  minuteness 
is  inevitable.”—  Dr.  C.  Jakob. 

“ The  idea  of  space  is  only  an  unavoidable  illusion  of  our  Consciousness  or  of  our 
finite  nature  and  does  not  exist  outside  ourselves ; the  universe  is  infinitely 
small  and  infinitely  great.” — Radenhausen. 

AS  matter  is  endless  in  time  or  eternal,  so  it  is  no  less 
without  beginning  or  end  in  space ; in  its  real  exist- 
ence it  withdraws  itself  from  the  limitations  imposed 
on  our  finite  mind  by  the  conceptions  of  time  and  space, 
conceptions  from  which  it  cannot  free  itself  in  thought. 
Whether  we  enquire  about  or  investigate  the  extension  of 
matter  in  the  minutest  or  the  greatest,  we  nowhere  find  an 
end  or  a final  form,  whether  we  call  to  our  aid  experiment 
or  reflexion.  When  the  discovery  of  the  microscope  or  the 
juxtaposition  of  magnifying  glasses,  opened  up  worlds  un- 
known before,  and  revealed  to  the  gaze  of  the  investigator 
a fineness  and  minuteness  of  organic  life  and  organic  form- 
elements  undreamed  of  until  then,  man  cherished  the 
audacious  hope  of  coming  on  the  track  of  the  final  organic 
element,  perhaps  on  the  very  basis  of  existence.  This  hope 
disappeared  in  proportion  to  the  improvement  of  our  instru- 
ments. In  the  hundredth  part  of  a drop  of  water  was 
found  a world  of  little  animals,  often  of  the  daintiest  and 
prettiest  form,  which  moved,  ate,  digested,  lived  like  every 

(31) 


32 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


other  animal,  and  by  the  fashion  of  their  movements  left  no 
doubt  that  they  were  not  without  the  two  chief  marks  of 
animal  life,  sensation  and  will.  The  smallest  of  these  under 
the  highest  magnifying  power  are  barely  recognizable  as 
to  their  outlines  ; their  internal  organization  naturally  re- 
mains wholly  unknown  to  us.  It  is  also  unknown  to  us, 
what  yet  smaller  forms  of  living  things  can  or  may  exist. 
“Shall  we,”  asks  Cotta,  “with  yet  improved  instruments 
see  the  Monads  as  giants  in  a dwarf- world  of  still  smaller 
organisms  ?” 

The  remarkable  wheel-animalcule,  formerly  mistakenly 
classed  among  the  Infusoria,  which  measures  from  to 
of  an  inch,  has  a gullet,  toothed  jaws,  stomach,  intestine, 
glands,  ovaries,  eyes,  blood,  vessels  and  nerves.  A drop 
of  sea-water  contains  a crowd  of  the  most  various  and  most 
curious  forms,  as  balls,  crosses,  baskets,  screws,  stars, 
chess-like  figures,  horns,  caps,  helmets,  etc.,  and  each  of 
these  forms  represents  a perfectly  developed  independent 
living  creature,  endowed  with  sensation  and  power  of 
movement. 

The  swift  Monad  (Flagelleta)  measures  the  twenty-four- 
thousandth  part  of  an  inch,  and  several  millions  of  these 
maybe  found  in  a drop  of  liquid.  The  vibriones,  micro- 
scopic animals  of  the  minutest  kind,  appear  under  magnifi- 
cation as  heaps  of  tiny  quivering,  scarcely  perceptible 
points  or  threads,  sometimes  straight,  sometimes  twisted 
like  a corkscrew,  and  of  these  it  is  calculated  that  more 
than  four  thousand  millions  would  occupy  a cubic  line. 
As  to  their  near  allies  the  bacteria,  the  so-called  protista  or 
original  life-forms,  which  stand  midway  as  to  their  nature 
between  the  plant  and  animal  kingdoms,  or  the  rod-like 
bodies  which  move  quickly  through  the  water  by  means  of 
a fine  and  often  scarcely  visible  vibrating  flagellum  and 
have  lately  been  recognized  as  most  dangerous  vehicles  of 
disease  — of  these,  according  to  Prof.  Cohn’s  calculation, 
663  millions  go  to  a cubic  millimetre,  and  636,000 
millions  would  be  required  to  balance  the  weight  of  a 


INFINITY  OF  MATTER. 


33 


gramme  or  the  five  hundredth  of  a pound.  The  spores  of 
i-  fungus  discovered  on  the  vine  in  Italy  are  so  small  that  a 
htman  blood -corpuscle  looks  like  a giant  beside  them 
under  the  microscope  ; but  the  blood-corpuscle  is  itself  so 
minute  that  the  smallest  drop  of  blood,  a cubic-millimetre 
in  size,  contains  more  than  five  millions  of  them.  The 
Ascaris  (a  round  worm)  lays  about  sixty-four  millions  of 
eggs,  and  almost  as  many  ovules  are  produced  by  a single 
orchid.  In  all  these  minute  bodies  resides  the  organic 
energy  of  transmission  or  the  tendency  of  the  reproduction 
of  a being  resembling  the  parental  form  in  all  its  finest 
peculiarities  — a specially  complicated  collocation  of  the 
material  elements  of  which  we  can  form  no  conception,  for 
our  power  of  vision  here  comes  to  an  end.  Still  less  is  the 
microscope  able  to  give  us  any  explanation  as  to  the  won- 
derful arrangement  and  internal  conditions  of  animal  or 
human  seed,  in  which  a single  cell  of  microscopic  minute- 
ness is  able  to  determine  the  physical  and  mental  nature  or 
characteristics  of  a future  being,  often  to  the  finest  shades 
during  the  course  of  a whole  life. 

Still  all  these  bodies  or  objects,  minute  as  they  may  be, 
are  yet  visible  to  our  enlarged  eyesight.  But  when  we 
come  to  the  newly  discovered  method  of  spectrum  analysis 
and  find  it  capable  of  revealing  with  certainty  the  presence 
of  the  third  part  of  the  thousand  millionth  part  of  a gramme 
- — five  hundred  grammes  to  a pound- — of  a heavy  body  (as 
for  example  kitchen  salt)  in  the  air  of  a room,  we  have 
here  a particle  which  lies  outside  the  limits  of  our  direct 
perception,  even  though  we  should  largely  increase  the 
magnifying  power  of  our  microscopes.  None  the  less  must 
it  be  presumed  that  this  particle  is  in  turn  composed  of  an 
indefinite  number  of  atoms  and  molecules  grouped  together, 
and  that  the  interspaces  which  separate  these  minutest  par- 
ticles of  matter  from  each  other,  must  be  as  wide,  as  enor- 
mously great  in  comparison  to  their  size  as  the  interspaces 
which  separate  from  each  other  the  individual  worlds. 
“The  most  powerful  microscope,’’  says  Professor  Valentin, 


34 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


“will  never  bring  within  our  view  either  the  form  or  the 
position  of  the  molecules  nor  even  those  of  the  smaller 
groups  of  atoms.  A grain  of  salt  which  we  can  scarceb 
taste,  contains  myriads  of  atom -groups,  which  no  humsn 
eye  will  ever  see.”  The  English  philosopher,  Professor 
Thompson , has  sought  to  determine  the  size  of  a zinc-mole- 
cule at  the  thirty-millionth  part  of  a millimetre,  and  in  this 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  molecule  may,  and  indeed 
must,  be  very  large  as  compared  with  an  atom  ; while  the 
diameter  of  a blood-corpuscle  is  reckoned  to  be  only  -j^Vo 
part  of  an  inch,  and  that  of  the  smallest  Infusioria  the  fifteen- 
hundredth  of  a millimetre.  But  then,  this  number  is 
merely  the  extremest  limit  of  what  we  are  able  to  compute 
on  the  ground  of  ascertained  data.  The  same  scientist  has 
calculated  that  if  a drop  of  water  could  be  expanded  to  the 
circumference  of  the  globe,  which  has  a diameter  of  8000 
miles,  and  if  each  single  water  molecule  were  expanded  to 
the  same  relative  size,  then  each  of  these  molecules  or  dis- 
tinct water  particles,  which  are  composed  in  their  turn  of 
atoms  of  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  would  only  be  about  the 
size  of  a bullet!  Professor  Perty  ( Die  Natur , 1869)  com- 
municates a calculation  according  to  which  a cubic  line  of 
organized  substance  must  contain  about  240,000  billions  of 
elementary  atoms  ! But  all  this  is  far  surpassed  by  the 
calculations  which  have  lately  been  made  by  English  and 
German  scientists  upon  the  molecular  constitution  of  the 
lightest  bodies  known  to  us,  viz.  the  gases.  The  so-called 
kinetic  theory  of  gases,  set  up  by  Clausius  and  Maxwell, 
puts  the  number  of  molecules  (the  groups  of  atoms,  atomic 
systems)  in  a cubic  centimetre  of  gas  or  vapor  at  no  less 
than  twenty-one  trillions , their  relative  distances  from  each 
other  being  from  a three-millionth  to  a four-millionth  of  a 
millimetre  ; and  that  144  trillion  molecules  of  the  pure 
hydrogen  gas  weigh  a milligramme  (the  thousandth  part 
of  a gramme).  According  to  Cams  Sterne  there  are  six 
trillion  molecules  in  a thimbleful  of  gas — a number  of 
which  Prof.  Kundt  endeavors  to  give  an  idea  as  follows  ; 


INFINITY  OF  MATTER. 


35 


“ If  a printing-press  were  able  to  print  every  day  a lexicon 
containing  three  million  letters,  it  would  then  have  to  work 
continually  for  64,000  years  in  order  to  print  as  many  let- 
ters as  there  are  contained  molecules  in  a thimbleful  of  air.” 
And  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  individual  molecules 
do  not  lie  closely  one  on  the  other,  but  are  so  widely 
separated  in  consequence  of  their  so-called  “molecular 
spherules,”  that  according  to  Clausius  they  in  reality  oc- 
cupy only  the  three  thousandth  part  of  the  entire  space. 
The  velocity  with  which  these  molecules  vibrate  among 
each  other  has  been  reckoned  at  1698  metres  per  second 
for  the  lightest  gas,  hydrogen  ; while  those  of  the  heavier 
gases  vibrate  with  a similar  relative  velocity,  but  still  ap- 
preciably slower.  In  a medium  velocity  of  477  metres  the 
number  of  repulsions  between  the  molecules  is  reckoned  at 
4700  millions  per  second.  The  ingenious  English  scientist 
Crookes , as  is  well  known,  has  reduced  enclosed  gases  by 
mechanical  and  chemical  methods  to  such  a state  of  rare- 
faction that  he  obtained  the  remarkable  phenomena  of 
“radiant  matter’’  or  the  so-called  “fourth  state  of  aggre- 
gation of  matter,”  wherein  the  freer  or  unconstrained 
molecules  move  among  themselves  more  easily  and  more 
swiftly.  These  phenomena  prove  that  it  was  a great  error 
to  suppose  that  by  such  rarefaction  could  be  obtained 
a vacuum  or  space  emptied  of  air  or  even  a condition  of 
matter  approaching  thereto.  For  example,  suppose  a 
globe  or  a space  from  13  to  14  centimetres  in  diameter, 
which  according  to  the  best  authorities  should  contain 
about  a quadrillion  gas-molecules,  exhausted  to  the 
millionth  of  an  atmosphere,  yet  according  to  Dr.  Kalischer 
( Journ.  Natur,  1880,  Nos.  17  and  18)  there  will  still  remain 
in  it  a trillion  molecules  ! In  order  to  give  an  idea  of  this 
vast  number,  the  same  writer  makes  the  following  cal- 
culation : If  in  such  an  exhausted  globe  a hole  could  be 
made  of  such  minuteness  that  in  each  second  a hundred 
million  gas-molecules  could  enter  through  it,  then  must 
about  400  million  years  pass  away  before  the  globe  would 


36 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


again  contain  air  of  the  original  density  of  the  atmosphere, 
or  would  again  contain  a quadrillion  gas-molecules  ! 

We  may  learn  the  incredible  rarefaction  or  extension  of 
which  matter  is  capable,  as  the  resultant  of  its  molecular 
or  atomic  groupings,  by  a glance  at  the  calculations  which 
have  been  made  on  the  inconceivable  rarity  of  ether — 
a substance,  imponderable  by  the  mechanical  means  at 
our  disposal,  which  fills  all  planetary  space  as  well  as  the 
finest  interspaces  within  all  bodies  ; and  also  by  those  made 
on  the  density  of  certain  celestial  bodies,  or  on  the  original 
vaporous  condition  of  our  own  solar  system.  Imagine  the 
total  mass  or  ponderable  matter  of  our  planetary  system, 
including  the  sun,  distributed  over  a ball  which  has  for  its 
circumference  the  orbit  of  Neptune,  the  outermost  planet 
known  to  us  — and  the  vaporous  ball  from  which  the  system 
evolved  must  have  had  such  an  extension  and  very  probably 
a much  greater  one  — then  the  matter  composing  it  would 
be  so  rare  that  the  density  of  that  primal  mist  would  be 
only  the  553  millionth  part  of  that  of  our  atmosphere;  ac- 
cording to  Radenhausen  it  would  have  one  ten-millionth  of 
the  density  of  hydrogen,  the  lightest  of  all  terrestrial  bodies; 
according  to  Helmholtz , a single  grain  of  solid  earthly  sub- 
stance would,  if  made  equally  rare,  fill  many  million  cubic 
miles.  If  we  believe  with  many  astronomers  that  the  primal 
sphere  of  our  solar  system  had  in  reality  a radius  of  two 
billion  miles,  then  the  density  of  that  primal  matter  could 
only  have  been  the  600,000  billionth  part  of  the  density  of 
hydrogen,  whilst  at  the  period  that  the  ring  of  the  earth- 
planet  severed  itself  from  the  solar  orb  it  must  have  already 
attained  a density  equal  to  the  nine-hundredth  part  of  that 
of  hydrogen  gas  ! ! 

Cometic  matter  or  the  matter  of  which  are  composed 
these  remarkable  knights-errant  of  the  universe,  is,  accord- 
ing to  the  calculations  of  astronomers,  so  fine  or  rare, 
that  a cubic  mile  of  it  would  scarcely  weigh  a few  grammes, 
or  borrowing  the  astronomer  IV.  Meyer's  phrase,  the 
comets,  if  compared  with  the  planets  relatively  to  their  mass, 


INFINITY  OF  MATTER. 


37 


are  scarcely  as  a paper  snip  compared  with  a cannon-ball. 
Light  and  fluid,  however,  as  are  these  erroneously  dreaded 
sky  visitants,  yet  the  ether — that  excessively  rare,  to  us 
imponderable  substance,  which  according  to  the  views  of 
physicists  not  only  fills  the  realms  of  space  but  fills  also  the 
tiniest  interspaces  of  even  the  densest  bodies,  and  which 
passes  through  glass  walls  and  unceasingly  flows  around 
all  atoms  and  molecules  — this  ether  offers  to  the  passage  of 
the  comets  a resistance  comparatively  so  slight,  that  its 
lightness  or  rarity  far  surpasses  that  of  everything  else 
that  is  known,  and  that  we  hesitate  to  state  the  figures, 
because  they  sound  too  audacious* 

An  atom  (from  the  Greek  a and  re/ivu,  i.  e.  a thing  which 
cannot  be  divided)  is  the  name  we  give  to  the  smallest 
portion  of  a chemical  element  or  elemental  matter,  which 
we  regard  as  capable  of  no  further  division,  or  the  division 
of  which  we  cannot  conceive ; and  we  regard  all  materials 
or  bodies  as  built  up  out  of  such  atoms  or  out  of  groups  of 
two  or  more  of  such  constituting  a common  body,  the  so- 
called  molecules,  and  existing  and  maintaining  these  char- 
acteristics by  a changing  system  of  mutual  attraction  and 
repulsion. 

Perhaps  we  are  not  mistaken  if  we  regard  a molecule  as 
somewhat  resembling  in  miniature  the  systems  of  the  uni- 
verse and  compare  the  separate  atoms,  out  of  which  it  is 

* Later  physicists  deny  the  existence  of  the  ether  and  accept  in  its  stead  an 
excessively  rare  gas  or  rarefaction  of  ordinary  matter.  According  to  Secchi  it 
consists  perhaps  of  none  but  the  primitive  or  true  atoms  of  the  unknown  primal 
matter,  from  which  were  built  up  in  separate  sets  or  groups  those  we  erroneously 
name  elements  or  original  matter,  so  that  all  forms  of  matter  would  thus  be 
constituted  from  ether.  According  to  Spiller  ( Die  Urkraft  des  Weltalh,  1876  — a 
book  well  worthy  of  study)  the  ether,  as  the  universal  force-endued  matter,  the 
one  primal  energy  of  the  universe  or  the  soul  of  the  world,  is  the  universe-will  or 
the  energy-matter,  the  unwearied  architect  to  whom  all  atoms  must  yield  obedi- 
ence without  volition,  and  “ which  without  personality  or  self-consciousness 
dictates  all  natural  laws  from  the  gravitation  of  the  greatest  and  most  distant 
worlds  to  the  chemical  action  of  the  body-forming  and  to  us  invisibe  atoms  of 
matter.”  He  calls  his  system  Etherism  or  the  system  of  universal  ether.  If  the 
theory  be  accurate,  that  the  matter  filling  the  interplanetary  spaces  is  only  the 
remains  of  the  former  primal  vapor,  then  it  must  be  far  rarer  than  it  was  originally, 
since  the  materials  have  been  taken  out  of  it  for  the  making  of  the  solid  bodies 
evolved  therefrom. 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


38 

built  up,  to  the  separate  celestial  bodies  joined  sometimes 
in  pairs,  sometimes  in  a system.  But  suggestive  as  is  such 
an  image,  and  appropriate  as  it  seems  to  throw  a wel- 
come light  upon  a large  number  of  chemical  and  physical 
problems,  on  the  phenomena,  properties  and  activities  of 
matter,  we  must  yet  admit  that  the  word  “atom’'’  is  only 
a name  for  an  artificial  idea  resulting  from  the  craving  of 
our  mind  for  limits  in  space,  and  which  we  require  for  the 
sake  of  scientific  objects.  The  science  of  chemistry  especial- 
ly seems  impossible  without  atomicity,  and  every  theory  or 
concrete  representation  in  it  must  be  at  an  end  without  this. 
But  yet  atomicity  is  and  remains  a scientific  hypothesis, 
and  we  are  wholly  without  any  real  grasp  of  the  thing  that 
we  call  an  atom.  We  know  nothing  of  its  size,  its  weight, 
its  form,  character,  color,  etc.;  we  know  not  if  it  is  elastic 
or  fusible,  if  it  is  angular  or  spherical,  etc. ; although  spec- 
ulations as  to  the  shape  and  properties  of  atoms  have  not 
been  wanting.  No  one  has  seen  the  atom,  and  no  one  will 
ever  see  it ; speculative  philosophers  deny  its  existence 
because  they  cannot  admit  that  a thing  can  exist,  the  divis- 
ion of  which  cannot  be  imagined,  and  they  declare  that  it 
is  impossible  both  logically  and  empirically.  In  fact  the 
unlimited  divisibility  of  atoms  or  of  the  molecules  built  up 
from  them  can  be  doubted  when  looked  at  either  from  a 
theoretical,  a metaphysical,  or  an  empirical  point  of  view, 
and  it  can  only  be  maintained  that  we  are  not  in  a position 
to  divide  them  further  by  the  chemical  and  physical  forces 
known  to  us.  If  for  instance  chemistry  teaches  that  a 
molecule  of  quicksilver  is  a hundred  times  as  heavy  as  a 
molecule  of  hydrogen,  then  must  the  former  in  comparison 
with  the  latter  have  a comparatively  large  size  and  hence 
must  be  divisible.  It  has  also  become  very  probable 
through  recent  investigations  that  the  substances  hereto- 
fore regarded  by  us  as  elements  or  original  bodies  are  noth- 
ing of  the  kind,  but  are  themselves  compounds,  and  that 
the  so-called  atoms  therefore  consist  of  units  of  a higher 
grade,  as  the  molecule  does  of  atoms.  Hence  we  must  re- 


INFINITY  OF  MATTER. 


39 


gard  the  atom,  if  we  desire  to  retain  this  idea,  as  being 
physically  the  type  of  the  infinitely  small.* 

Thus  neither  by  observation  nor  by  thought  can  we,  in 
contemplating  matter  in  minuteness,  reach  a point  at  which 
we  can  stop,  and  there  is  no  likelihood  of  such  a point 
being  reached.  1 ‘ Everywhere  we  find,  ’ ’ says  Stewart,  ‘ ‘ that 
the  limitations  of  our  reasoning  faculties  in  respect  of  space 
and  time  shut  out  the  possibility  of  our  becoming  accurately 
acquainted  with  these  exceedingly  minute  bodies,  which 
are  none  the  less  the  raw  material  out  of  which  the  universe 
is  built  up.”  On  the  other  side  of  the  present  outposts 
of  microscopical  investigation  the  famous  English  scientist 
Tyndall,  on  the  occasion  of  a meeting  in  the  Philharmonic 
Hall,  London,  suggested  a yet  unmeasured  field  of  scien- 
tific imagination.  For  we  have  here  to  deal  with  bodies  so 
infinitely  small,  that  in  comparison  with  them  the  test  ob- 
jects of  the  microscope  are  literally  immeasurable.  “As 
the  distances  in  space  of  the  planetary  realms  merely  give 
us  a dizzy  notion  of  immeasurability,  without  leaving  any 
definite  impress  on  the  mind,  so  the  quantities  with  which 
we  have  to  deal  here,  leave  with  us  a dizzy  feeling  as  to 
the  minute.” 

Hence  we  can  say  nothing  except  that  matter  and  therefore 
the  universe  are  infinite  in  minuteness,  and  it  matters  little 
if  our  reason,  accustomed  to  find  quantity  and  limit  every- 
where, should  be  startled  by  such  an  idea. 

As  the  microscope  guides  us  in  the  world  of  the  minute, 
so  does  the  telescope  direct  us  in  the  world  of  the  vast. 
Here  also  astronomers  audaciously  dreamed  of  penetrating 

* Atomicity,  or  the  explanation  of  the  whole  by  the  parts,  was  founded  by  the 
Greek  philosopher  Leukippus  (500  B.  C.)  and  developed  by  his  disciples  Democritus , 
Epikurus  and  Lucretius.  Expelled  from  general  knowledge  by  Christianity  and 
from  science  by  the  Socratic  philosophy,  it  was  resuscitated  and  brought  out 
again  by  Gassendi,  Hobbes,  Dalton  and  others  (1592-1844,)  while  Lavoisier , to- 
wards the  end  of  the  last  century,  proved  the  indestructibility  of  the  atom  and 
founded  thereupon  modern  chemistry.  A modern  speculative  natural  philosophy, 
somewhat  fantastic  in  its  methods,  seeks  to  throw  doubt  upon  the  material  exist- 
ence of  atoms  and  to  regard  them  as  centres  of  energy.  Particulars  of  this,  as 
well  as  of  the  criticism  of  the  Atomic  Theory,  will  be  found  in  the  author's  work 
JVatur  und  Geist,  3rd  edition,  p.  79,  et  seg. 


4° 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


to  the  very  limits  of  the  universe,  but  the  more  they  per- 
fected their  instruments,  the  more  immeasurably  did  the 
worlds  expand  before  their  astonished  gaze.  The  light 
white  mists  seen  by  the  naked  eye  in  the  vault  of  heaven 
were  resolved  by  the  telescope  into  myriads  of  stars,  of 
worlds,  of  suns,  of  planetary  systems  ; and  the  earth  with 
its  inhabitants,  so  fondly  and  proudly  deemed  the  very 
crown  and  centre  of  existence,  fell  from  its  fancied  exalta- 
tion to  a mere  atom  moving  in  immeasurable  space.  “All 
Dur  experiments  yield  us  not  the  slightest  trace  of  a limit ; 
each  increased  power  of  the  telescope  only  opens  to  our 
gaze  new  realms  of  stars  and  nebulae,  which,  if  not  consist- 
ing of  galaxies  of  stars,  are  self- illumining  matter.”  — Grove. 
“ With  each  sharpening  of  our  tools  which  bear  our  gaze 
into  the  waves  of  light  of  the  furthest  starry  realms,  new 
waves  of  suns  break  forth  from  the  limitless  ocean  of  the 
stars.”—  IV.  Meyer.  “ Even  with  the  most  powerful  teles- 
copes we  see  so  many  faintly-shining  stars  that  we  are 
unable  to  doubt  that  on  the  further  side  of  these  there  are 
yet  others  which  will  become  visible  by  larger  instruments.’  ’ 
— G.  J.  Klein.  “ From  all  these  experiments  we  conclude 
that  the  depth  of  celestial  space  cannot  be  sounded,  and 
that  we  shall  never  succeed  in  reaching  its  bounds.  We 
should  vainly  strive  by  a cumulation  of  resemblances  to 
give  even  an  approximate  idea  of  the  immeasurableness  of 
the  starry  universe.” — Secchi. 

The  distances  calculated  by  astronomers  in  space  are  so 
vast  that  our  intellect  grows  dizzy  as  we  contemplate  them, 
and  our  fancy  tries  in  vain  to  follow  the  conceptions  sug- 
gested by  them.  Seeing  that  even  the  distances  in  our 
own  solar  system  cannot  be  realized  by  our  minds,  how 
much  less  can  those  of  the  fixed  stars,  which  are  generally 
designated  by  the  so-called  “solar  distances”  (20  million 
German  miles  or  I48'6  million  kilometres)  or  by  the  time 
taken  by  light  to  travel  across  them.  Thus  in  order  to  find 
a mathematical  expression  for  the  enormous  distances  in 
space,  astronomers  have  adopted  the  so-called  light-timet 


INFINITY  OF  MATTER. 


41 


based  on  the  extraordinary  velocity  of  light,  which,  as  is 
well  known,  travels  at  the  rate  of  40,160  German  miles  per 
second  (186,000  English  miles  Tr.).  A second  of  light- 
time therefore  means  a distance  of  186  thousand  miles  ; a 
year  of  light-time  means  nearly  six  billion  miles  (5,865,- 
696,000,000).  Now  the  distance  of  the  fixed  star  nearest  to 
us  (a  Centauri),  the  sun  nearest  to  us  outside  our  solar  sys- 
tem (one  of  the  brightest  of  the  stars),  is  reckoned  at  about 
3)4  years  of  light-time,  or  at  224,500  solar  distances,  or 
nearly  22  billion  miles  (21,996,360,000,000)  ; the  distance 
of  the  star  61  Cygni  is  about  400,000  solar  distances,  or  37 
billion  miles,  or  nearly  60  billion  kilometres.  The  distance 
of  the  brilliant  Sirius  or  of  the  dog-star  of  Aquarius  from 
the  earth  is  calculated  at  17  light-years,  or  at  more  than  a 
million  times  the  distance  of  the  earth  from  the  sun.  If  we 
wanted  to  travel  from  the  earth  to  the  nearest  fixed  star  we 
should  require  30,000  years  for  our  journey— supposing 
that  we  were  able  to  move  towards  it  in  a straight  line  with 
the  velocity  of  our  solar  system  in  space  (i8)4  miles  per 
second),  and  that  it  did  not  change  its  position.  But  the 
above-named  stars  all  belong  to  those  lying  near  to  us, 
whereas  the  distant  fixed  stars  are  reckoned  at  a distance 
of  hundreds  and  thousands  of  light-years.  The  number  of 
these  stars,  or  rather  suns,  lying  outside  our  system,  has 
been  raised  by  the  giant-telescopes  of  late  years  to  about  20 
millions,  whereas  we  can  see  only  some  4000  or  5000  of 
them  with  the  naked  eye  ; and  these  countless  suns  are 
divided  from  each  other  by  such  spaces  as  we  have  above 
described,  including  the  yet  more  countless  satellites  and 
sub-satellites  which  probably  accompany  them.  But  all  these 
taken  together  do  not  form  the  universe  ; on  the  contrary, 
they  one  and  all  belong  to  a definite  and  comparatively 
much  limited  star-system,  beside  which  there  are  countless 
others  and  mostly  larger  systems  in  the  universe.  This 
system  or  republic  of  stars,  of  which  our  sun  with  its  sat- 
ellites only  forms  a small  part,  or  this  island  of  worlds 
stretches  in  form  like  a somewhat  strongly  flattened  lens 


42 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


through  space,  and  is  bounded  at  its  periphery  by  two 
almost  parallel  annular  aggregations  of  suns,  which  are 
visible  to  us  in  the  form  of  the  well-known  via  lacUa.  The 
distance  of  these  from  the  earth  is  calculated  at  from  4000 
to  5000  light-years,  that  is  to  say,  light  would  require  this 
time  to  travel  thence  to  us,  while  according  to  Madler's 
calculation  it  requires  9000  years  to  travel  round  the  ring 
of  the  milky  way  from  one  end  to  the  other.  Our  sun 
which  is  not  quite  in  the  centre  of  this  system  of  fixed  stars, 
but  stands  on  one  side,  is  573  light-years  from  the  centre 
of  this  ring  and  lies  about  a thousand  light-years  nearer  to 
one  side  of  the  inner  milky  way  than  to  the  other.  The  whole 
system  most  probably  revolves  round  a common  and  yet 
undiscovered  fixed  point  or  virtual  centre. 

But  even  this  is  not  enough  ; the  telescope  informs  us 
that  this  system  with  all  its  countless  hosts  of  stars,  with 
its  distances  and  extensions  escaping  from  our  grasp,  is  yet 
but  a finite  limited  part  of  the  immeasurable  universe,  and 
that  at  distances,  in  comparison  with  which  all  the  be- 
wildering dimensions  of  the  ring  of  the  milky  way  are 
infinitely  small,  there  exist  other  world  systems  which  lead 
their  existence  quite  independently  of  ours.  These  are  the 
so-called  nebulae,  those  wondrous  forms  in  the  deepest 
depths  of  space,  whose  position,  shape  and  condition  show 
all  imaginable  variety,  and  of  which,  since  W.  Herschel 
first  intimately  observed  them,  considerably  more  than 
6000  are  known  at  present.  Part  of  them  by  far  exceed  in 
their  extension  — although  they  often  appear  to  the  eye  as 
mere  shining  dots  and  sometimes  cannot  be  seen  without 
the  greatest  difficulty  — that  of  the  milky  way,  and  they 
like  the  latter  must  either  consist  of  many  millions  and 
thousands  of  millions  of  celestial  bodies  or  of  planetary 
systems  coming  into  existence.  Their  distances  from  us 
are  so  fabulous  that  they  can  only  be  reckoned  by  millions 
of  years  of  light-time  ; nay,  some  even  are  said  to  have 
been  observed  which  must  be  at  a distance  of  a hundred 
million  years  of  light-time.  These  are  indeed  merely 


INFINITY  OF  MATTER. 


43 


phrases,  with  which  we  are  unable  to  connect  any  idea, 
for  we  have  no  sort  of  terrestrial  measure  for  them  ; only 
the  word  “infinite”  is  and  remains  applicable  here.  “The 
universe,  ’ ’ forcibly  remarks  the  French  philosopher  Pascal , 
“is  a circle  whose  centre  is  everywhere  and  whose  circum- 
ference is  nowhere.” 

If  from  these  facts  it  is  sought  to  draw  any  conclusion  as 
to  the  antiquity  of  the  world,  it  then  cannot  be  doubted 
that  the  present  order  of  the  celestial  bodies,  that  which 
we  call  in  the  widest  sense  the  “ order  of  the  universe,” 
must  have  existed  for  millions  of  years  in  the  same  or  in 
similar  order  to  that  we  find  to  day.  In  fact  as  we  gaze  at 
the  firmament,  we  read  thereon  only  the  circumstances, 
the  record  of  past  minutes  and  hours  or  of  times  lying  far 
behind  us,  and  occurrences  which  perhaps  took  place 
before  our  earth  separated  itself  as  an  independent  body 
from  the  solar  sphere,  appear  to  us  as  present.  When  we 
observe  a change  in  the  sun,  we  can  only  say  that  such  a 
change  took  place  seven  and  a half  minutes  ago,  for  the 
light  requires  that  time  to  travel  from  it  to  the  earth.  If 
Neptune,  the  most  distant  planet  of  our  system,  were  de- 
stroyed by  any  catastrophe,  it  would  only  vanish  from  our 
sight  four  or  five  hours  later,  for  that  is  its  distance  from 
us  reckoned  by  “ light-times.”  If  the  beautiful  star  Vega  in 
the  constellation  of  the  Lyre  were  suddenly  to  cease  to  exist, 
we  should  none  the  less  behold  it  shining  in  the  sky  for 
eighteen  years  to  come,  for  the  rays  of  light  that  strike  our 
eyes  in  witness  of  its  existence  quitted  it  eighteen  years  be- 
fore. But  the  stars  whose  light  is  visible  to  us  by  the  aid  of 
our  best  telescopes  are  calculated  to  be  at  a distance  of  from 
2000  to  3000  years  of  light-time,  that  is  that  the  dying  ray, 
which  brings  us  the  tidings  of  their  existence,  left  its  source 
about  the  time  that  Homer  sang  on  our  earth,  or  the  great 
sages  of  Greece  lived  and  taught.  And  when  perhaps  a 
hundred  million  years  ago  the  first  and  earliest  forms  of 
life  began  to  germinate  on  the  young  earth,  then  sprang 
from  yonder  furthest  nebulae  the  ray  of  light  which  sinks 


44 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


to-day  into  our  eyes  as  the  witness  of  their  existence ! ‘ ‘Yes, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  are  stars  which  give  us  no 
light  simply  because  their  rays  have  not  yet  reached  our 
earth,  and  others  again  that  lie  so  far  away  that  their  rays 
can  no  longer  reach  the  globe,  either  because  they  have 
already  ceased  to  exist  or  because  the  illuminating  power 
of  the  ray  cannot  traverse  the  enormous  distance.”  — 
DU  Prel. 

But  that  even  these  stars  do  not  and  cannot  signify  the 
limits  of  the  world-filled  realms  of  space  can  be  deduced 
from  the  law  of  gravitation  as  well  as  from  analogy.  Empty, 
boundless  space  is  an  astronomical  as  it  is  a logical 
absurdity.  ‘‘To  suppose”  says  Grove  {Correlation  of 
Phys.  Forces , 6th.  ed.  p.  125)  ‘‘the  stellar  universe  to  be 
bounded  by  infinite  space  or  by  infinite  chaos,  that  is  to  say, 
to  suppose  a spot — for  it  would  then  become  so  — of 
matter  in  definite  forms,  with  definite  forces,  and  probably 
teeming  with  definite  organic  beings,  plunged  in  a universe 
of  nothing,  is,  to  my  mind  at  least,  far  more  unphilosophi- 
cal  than  to  suppose  a boundless  universe  of  matter  existing 
in  forms  and  actions  more  or  less  analogous  to  those  which, 
as  far  as  our  examination  goes,  pervade  space.” 

If  then  we  can  find  no  limit  to  matter  in  the  minute,  still 
less  are  we  able  to  find  a limit  in  the  vast  ; we  must  there- 
fore pronounce  matter  to  be  infinite  in  both  directions,  in 
the  great  as  in  the  small,  and  to  be  independent  of  the 
limitations  of  space  and  time.  If  the  laws  of  thought  postu- 
late an  infinite  divisibility  of  matter,  if,  according  to  them, 
it  be  also  impossible  to  imagine  a limit  to  space  and  nil 
beyond  it,  we  find  a remarkable  and  satisfying  unanimity 
between  the  laws  of  logic  and  the  results  of  our  scientific 
investigations.  We  shall  hereafter  have  an  opportunity  of 
proving  the  identity  of  the  laws  of  thought  with  the 
mechanical  laws  of  external  nature  on  other  points  as 
well,  and  to  show  that  the  former  are  the  necessary  pro- 
duct of  the  latter. 

‘‘  Beyond  the  range  of  human  reason,”  says  Rade?ihausen 


INFINITY  OF  MATTER. 


45 


in  his  Isis,  vol.  IV,  p.  172,  “there  is  neither  space  nor 
time  ; they  are  arbitrary  conceptions  of  man  at  which  he 
has  arrived  by  the  comparison  and  arrangement  of  differ- 
ent impressions  which  he  has  received  from  the  outside 
world.  The  conception  of  space  arises  from  the  sequence 
of  the  various  forms  which  fill  space,  by  which  the  external 
world  appears  to  the  individual  man.  The  conception  of 
time  arises  from  the  sequence  of  the  various  forms  which 
change  in  space  (motion),  by  which  the  external  world 
acts  on  the  individual  man,  and  so  on.  But  externally  to 
ourselves  the  distinction  between  repletion  of  space  and 
mutation  of  space  does  not  exist,  for  each  is  in  constant 
transmutation,  whatever  is  is  filling  and  changing  at  the 
same  time,  nothing  is  at  a standstill  ” etc. 

“ Weder  Anfang  hat  die  Welt,  noch  Ende, 

Nicht  im  Raum,  noch  in  der  Zeit. 

Ueberall  ist  Mittelpunkt  und  Wende 
Und  im  Nu  die  Ewigkeit.” 

(“The  world  has  neither  beginning  nor  end,  in  space 
nor  in  time.  Everywhere  is  centre  and  turning-point,  and 
in  a moment  is  eternity.’’) — Riickert. 


Value  of  Matter. 


" By  an  intellectual  necessity  1 cross  the  boundary  of  the  experimental  evidence, 
and  discern  in  that  Matter  which  we,  in  our  ignorance  of  its  latent  powers, 
and  notwithstanding  our  professed  reverence  for  its  Creator,  have  hitherto 
covered  with  opprobrium,  the  promise  and  potency  of  all  terrestrial  life.” — 
Tyndall. 

“ The  times  are  gone  by  in  which  man  dreamed  of  spirit  independent  of  matter. 
But  the  times  are  also  past  in  which  the  spiritual  was  supposed  to  be  degraded 
if  it  was  only  manifested  through  matter.” — Moleschott. 

“ Men  have  constantly  endeavored  to  degrade  matter,  but  have  only  succeeded 
in  showing  that  the  divine  beauty  of  a fundamental  constituent  of  their  nature 
is  hidden  from  them.” — Elements  of  social  science. 

THERE  was  a time  when  men,  in  a frame  of  mind 
hostile  to  earth  and  seized  with  a sort  of  mental  and 
moral  crapulence  over  the  destruction  of  this  present 
world,  imagined  that  they  saw  approaching  the  end  and 
ruin  not  only  of  political  but  also  of  all  earthly  things.  In 
this  mood  they  turned  in  thought  to  the  wonders  and 
delights  of  that  other  non-earthly  world,  which  should 
recompense  them  for  the  intolerable  tribulation  of  the 
present  one.  Hence  arose,  or  at  least  found  wider  accept- 
ance that  foolish  conception  which  matter  looks  upon  as  a 
crude,  dismal,  inert  Something,  hostile  or  opposed  to 
spirit ; it  received  support  from  the  then  ruling  philosophy 
of  Aristotle,  which  also  regarded  matter  as  incapable  of 
independent  motion  and  therefore  as  dependent  on  a 
moving  reason  ( vovc ).  Thus  religious  fanatics  began  to 
vent  their  rage  against  their  own  bodies,  which  were  re- 
garded as  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  higher  mental  or  moral 
impulse.  The  earth  was  looked  on  as  a vale  of  tears, 
Nature  as  a thing  subject  to  the  curse  of  the  deity  ; man’s 

46) 


VALUE  OF  MATTER. 


47 


own  flesh  was  the  most  contemptible  of  all  and  was  to  be 
injured  and  punished  as  much  as  possible.  Had  not  the 
apostle  Paul,  the  real  founder  of  the  new  universal  religion, 
expressly  declared  : “They  that  are  Christ’s  have  crucified 
the  flesh,  with  its  affections  and  lusts.” 

“This  whole  island  (Capraria)”  says  an  ancient  Roman 
historian  at  the  time  that  Christianity  was  imported  into  a 
world  doomed  to  destruction  and  hastening  to  its  fall,  “ is 
occupied  or  rather  disfigured  by  men  who  shun  the  day. 
They  call  themselves  monks  or  hermits,  because  they  live 
alone  and  wish  to  have  no  witnesses  of  their  actions.  They 
avoid  the  gifts  of  fortune  lest  they  should  lose  them  ; and 
in  order  not  to  become  unfortunate,  they  devote  themselves 
to  voluntary  destitution.  How  absurd  is  their  choice  ! how 
preposterous  their  reason!  to  fear  the  evils  of  human  con- 
ditions without  being  in  a position  to  enjoy  its  pleasures  ! 
This  melancholy  insanity  must  be  the  result  of  a disease, 
or  else  the  consciousness  of  guilt  drives  these  unhappy 
men  to  rage  against  their  own  bodies,  upon  which  they 
inflict  torments  such  as  are  assigned  by  the  hand  of  justice 
to  runaway  slaves.”* 

In  the  Middle-Ages,  that  desolate  period  of  rude  noble 
tyranny  and  fanatical  priestly  dominion,  so-called  servants 
of  God  had  carried  things  so  far  that  matter  was  treated 
with  great  contempt  and  that  they  nailed  their  own  bodies, 

* Compare  the  famous  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  of  Gibbon,  who 
writing  on  the  monks  and  monasteries  of  that  period,  adds  : " The  freedom  of  the 
mind,  the  source  of  every  generous  and  rational  sentiment,  was  destroyed  by  the 
habits  of  credulity  and  submission ; and  the  monk,  contracting  the  vices  of  a 
slave,  devoutly  followed  the  faith  and  passions  of  his  ecclesiastical  tyrant.  The 
peace  of  the  Eastern  church  was  invaded  by  a swarm  of  fanatics,  incapable  of 
fear,  or  reason,  or  humanity ; and  the  Imperial  troops  acknowledged,  without 
shame,  that  they  were  much  less  apprehensive  of  an  encounter  with  fiercest  Bar- 
barians.” And  again:  “They  aspired  to  reduce  themselves  to  the  rude  and 
miserable  state  in  which  the  human  brute  is  scarcely  distinguished  above  his 
kindred  animals  ; and  a numerous  sect  of  Anachorets  derived  their  name  from 
their  humble  practice  of  grazing  in  the  fields  of  Mesopotamia  with  the  common 
herd.”  He  also  quotes  with  regard  to  the  effect  of  the  monasteries  on  the  em- 
pire the  characteristic  remark  of  Zosimus,  “ that  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor,  the 
Christian  monks  had  reduced  a great  part  of  mankind  to  a state  of  beggary.” 
(See  chap.  XXXVII,  Gibbon,  for  further  details.  7>.)  Also,  chap.  X,  pages  561  to 
608,  Gibbon’s  History  of  Christianity. 


48 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


the  noble  work  of  Nature,  to  the  pillory.  Some  crucified 
themselves,  others  tormented  themselves  ; crowds  of  flag- 
ellants or  self-floggers  wandered  through  the  country, 
openly  exhibiting  their  voluntarily  torn  bodies  ; men  strove 
by  refined  methods  to  ruin  health  and  strength,  in  order 
that  the  spirit — -regarded  as  something  supernatural,  as 
something  independent  of  matter  — might  gain  the  victory 
over  its  sinful  bearer.  The  saintly  Bernard , as  Feuerbach 
relates,  so  lost  his  sense  of  taste  by  excessive  asceticism, 
that  he  ate  grease  for  butter,  and  drank  oil  for  water. 
Rostan  tells  us  that  in  many  monasteries  the  superiors 
were  in  the  habit  of  bleeding  their  monks  several  times  a 
year,  in  order  to  subdue  the  rebellious  passions  which  the 
divine  service  by  itself  was  incapable  of  containing.  But 
he  also  informs  us  that  nature  trampled  upon  sometimes 
avenged  herself,  and  that  in  these  living  graves  revolts 
were  not  uncommon,  when  the  superiors  would  be  threat- 
ened with  poison  and  dagger.  It  has  long  been  known 
what  sad  and  wretched  ascetics  are  still  found  among  the 
poor  people  of  India.  The  consequence  is  that  their  glori- 
ous land  is  a prey  and  they  themselves  have  become  the 
slaves  of  a small  number  of  aliens. 

Such  errors  and  perversions  of  right  feeling  are  fortu- 
nately only  possible  at  this  day  as  generally  condemned 
exceptions,  or  as  follies  commited  by  individuals  instigated 
by  fanaticism  or  insanity.  A nobler  view  has  shown  us 
that,  as  Schleicher  says,  neither  spirit  nor  matter  exists  in 
the  sense  that  is  generally  supposed,  but  that  there  is  only 
one  which  is  equivalent  to  the  twain,  and  that  as  we  de- 
grade matter,  we  in  the  same  proportion  degrade  the  spirit; 
that  as  we  dishonor  nature,  we  injure  the  universal  womb 
which  has  conceived  and  brought  forth  all  of  us  ; that  as 
we  ill-use  our  body  we  ill-use  our  spirit,  and  that  he  who 
acts  thus  injures  himself  to  just  the  extent  that  he  in  his 
foolish  fancy  imagined  that  he  had  benefited  his  soul.  Let 
us  form  and  cultivate  our  bodies  or  what  is  matter  in  us  not 
less  than  our  spirit,  and  let  us  not  forget  that  the  twain  are 


VALUE  OF  MATTER. 


49 


inseparable,  and  that  what  we  do  to  the  one,  the  other  also 
benefits  by.  The  old  Ciceronian  saying  : Mens  Sana  in 
corpore  sano  (healthy  mind  in  healthy  body)  contains  as 
much  truth  as  its  opposite : The  mind  builds  its  own  body. 
On  the  other  hand  we  ought  not  to  forget  that  as  individuals, 
as  separate  entities,  we  are  only  a fugitive  part  of  the  whole, 
which  must  sooner  or  later  return  into  that  whole.  Nature, 
or  matter  in  its  totality,  is  the  universal  mother,  evolving 
everything  from  herself  and  having  everything  restored 
to  herself. 

1st  denn  nicht,  was  ihr  Materie  nennt, 

Der  Welt  urkraftig  Element, 

Aus  dem,  was  immer  lebt  und  webt, 

Empor  zu  Licht  und  Bewegung  strebt, 

Und  das  dich  selbst  und  die  ganze  Welt 
Im  unergriindlichen  Schoosse  halt 
Und  Alles  gebiert  und  Alles  verschlingt, 

Was  bier  nach  Leben  und  Dasein  ringt  ? 

(All  that  is  called  matter  is  the  primal  forceful  element 
of  the  universe,  out  of  which  all  that  lives  and  moves  strug- 
gles upwards  to  light  and  movement,  which  contains  itself 
and  the  universe  in  its  unfathomable  womb,  which  brings 
forth  and  devours  up  everything  that  here  wrestles  for  life 
and  being.) 

No  nation  knew  better  than  the  Greeks  how  to  honor  the 
purely  human  on  its  own  account,  and  none  knew  better 
how  to  esteem  life  in  contrast  with  death.  Lucian  relates  : 
“When  Dsemonax,  a greybeard  of  one  hundred  years, 
was  asked  before  his  death  how  he  desired  to  be  buried  he 
answered  : ‘ Do  not  trouble  yourselves,  the  corpse  will  be 
buried  by  the  smell.’  ‘ But,’ said  his  friends,  ‘would  you 
then  serve  as  food  to  dogs  and  birds  ? ’ ‘ Why  not  ? ’ he 

answered,  * so  long  as  I have  lived  I have  striven  to  serve 
men  with  all  my  power,  and  why  should  I not  give 
something  to  the  brutes  after  my  death  ? ’ ’’ 

Our  modern  society  can  certainly  not  raise  itself  to  this 
point  of  view.  It  is  thought  grander  to  barricade  the  piti- 


50 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


ful  corpse  with  flagstones  for  a century,  or  to  shut  it  up  in 
the  family  vault  with  beringed  fingers,  rather  than  to  re- 
store to  the  Whole  that  which  has  been  received  there- 
from and  which  cannot  be  withheld  in  perpetuity. 

A medical  theologian,  Professor  Leupoldt  of  Erlangen, 
maintains  that  those  who  from  scientific  reasons  start  from 
matter  instead  of  from  God,  must  really  renounce  all  scien- 
tific ideas,  because  beings  who  are  themselves  only  minute 
portions  of  nature  and  particles  of  matter,  are  incapable  of 
penetrating  into  or  of  conceiving  nature  and  matter.  This 
reasoning  is  truly  more  worthy  of  the  theologian  than  of 
the  physician  ! Have  those  who  start  from  God  and  not 
from  matter,  ever  been  able  to  give  us  any  intelligence 
about  the  laws  of  nature  or  about  the  properties  and  activi- 
ties of  this  matter  which  they  regard  so  contemptuously? 
Could  they  tell  us  whether  the  sun  moves  or  stands  still? 
Whether  the  earth  is  round  or  flat  ? What  is  God’s  nature, 
or  design?  and  so  on.  Can  they  give  us  the  smallest 
scientific  information  on  those  great  questions  which  are 
agitating  the  mind  of  every  thoughtful  person,  as  to  the 
origin  of  the  world  and  of  man  ? or  as  to  the  laws  by  which, 
according  to  them,  the  universe  is  governed?  No!  that 
were  an  impossibility.  “To  start  from  God  in  the  study 
and  investigation  of  nature’’  is  a phrase  without  thought 
or  reason,  which  signifies  nothing  and  by  which  nothing  is 
got.  That  melancholy  method  of  investigating  nature,  of 
philosophically  contemplating  nature,  which  starting  from 
theoretical  premisses  or  metaphysical  ideas,  fancied  that 
the  universe  could  be  constructed  and  the  truths  of  nature 
ascertained  by  speculative  methods,  has  fortunately  been 
overthrown  many  a long  day  ;*  and  exactly  the  opposite 
plan,  the  investigation  of  natural  laws  and  natural  phenom- 
ena by  the  deepest  study  of  nature  herself  and  by  the  en- 
quiry into  material  facts  and  laws  has  yielded  all  those 
great  results  and  beneficial  effects  in  which  we  now  rejoice 

* Bacon  ofVerulam.  the  famous  experimental  philosopher,  said  in  his  days:  “All 
purely  logical  explanations  are  worthless,  since  Nature  far  exceeds  in  fineness 
(subtilitas)  all  arguments  drawn  from  inductive  ratiocination.” 


VALUE  OF  MATTER. 


51 


both  in  spiritual  and  material  respects.  Then  why  should 
those  who  proceed  from  matter,  or  who  base  thereon  their 
investigations,  be  unable  to  understand  matter?  On  the 
contrary,  we  shall  be  able  all  the  better  to  understand  it 
and  to  control  it,  the  more  we  endeavor  to  learn  to  know 
it  in  its  infinite  fineness  and  its  incredible  energy  and  capac 
ity,  by  means  of  observation,  of  investigation,  of  experi- 
ment. Experience  has  spoken  here  with  sufficient  clear- 
ness. The  scientists,  unfairly  decried  as  ‘ ‘ Materialists,  ’ ’ 
have  not  only  made  it  possible  for  our  mind  to  penetrate 
by  thought  into  the  All  and  to  obtain  scientific  certitute  on 
questions  and  things  which  appeared  for  ever  sealed  to  it  ; 
but  we  also  owe  it  to  them  that  the  human  race  is  more 
and  more  borne  upwards  in  the  mighty  arms  of  matter, 
known  and  controlled  through  its  laws,  and  that  we  can 
perform  by  it  works  and  acts,  which  in  former  times  seemed 
possible  only  to  giants  and  magicians.  Such  results  must 
silence  envy,  and  the  times  appear  gone  by  wherein  a world 
falsely  framed  by  fancy  was  deemed  by  men  worth  more 
than  the  real  one.  Even  if  many  hypocritically  turn  their 
faces  away  from  it,  it  is  only  done  in  pretence.  In  their 
deeds  they  manifest  the  contrary  of  their  words.  No  one 
now  tortures  nor  scourges  himself,  nor  seeks  asceticism  in 
lieu  of  enjoyment.  On  the  contrary  each  strives  with  all 
his  powers  to  snatch  the  share  of  goods  and  of  pleasures 
due  to  him,  and  offered  to  him  by  this  life,  beautified  and 
exalted  a thousandfold.  To  those,  who  nevertheless  per- 
sist in  turning  their  eyes  to  heaven  rather  than  to  earth,  is 
applied  the  striking  phrase  of  Ludwig  Feuerbach  : “The 
hypocrisy  of  self-infatuation  is  the  cardinal  sin  of  the  age.” 
This  is  due  more  or  less  to  those  who,  if  not  in  every- 
day life,  yet  in  theory  and  philosophy,  continue  to  hold 
fast  to  that  unreasonable  idea  of  matter,  already  mentioned, 
as  a dead,  inert,  dark,  motionless,  rough  Something,  op- 
posed to  the  spirit  and  either  hostile  or  subservient  to  it, 
rightly  designated  as  a ‘‘horrid  dream  ” by  F.  A Lange  in 
his  History  of  Materialism , and  who  from  this  theory  de- 


52 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


duce  consequences  which  put  fancies  in  the  place  of  realities, 
seli-deceptions  in  the  place  of  truth.  These  foolish  people 
utterly  forget  in  their  spiritualistic  stultification  that,  as  the 
study  of  the  primal  earth  has  clearly  shown,  matter  (out  of 
which  they  have  themselves  arisen)  existed  long  before  the 
spirit , and  that  all  yet  future  forms,  including  reasoning 
beings,  potentially  or  in  capacity  must  have  been  contained 
in  that  primal  world-mist  out  of  which  our  solar  system 
was  gradually  evolved  with  all  its  wonders  and  its  inhabit- 
ants. They  forget  also  that  spirit  can  only  exist  on  a 
substratum  of  organized  matter,  and  that  not  the  shadow  of 
a proof  can  be  brought  forward  to  show  that  spirit  can  attain 
to  an  independent  existence  outside  of  matter.  Further, 
they  do  not  appear  to  know  that  all  forces  active  in  the 
earth,  without  exception,  (including,  of  course,  the  spirit- 
ual ones  produced  by  a definite  arrangement  of  organized 
matter)  ultimately  arise  from  the  sun  and  take  origin  in  the 
form  of  light  and  heat  coming  to  us  by  the  vibrations  of 
ether-particles.  Lastly  they  overlook  that  which  in  fact  is 
proved  everywhere,  that  if  spirit  and  matter  were  opposites 
they  could  not  act  upon  each  other,  nor  in  any  essential 
respect  be  transmutable.  The  simple  solution  of  the  problem 
lies  in  the  fact  that  not  only  physical  but  also  psychical 
energies  inhere  in  matter,  and  that  the  latter  always  become 
manifest  wherever  the  necessary  conditions  are  found,  or 
that,  wherever  matter  is  arranged  in  a certain  manner  and 
moved  in  a certain  way  in  the  brain  or  the  nervous  system, 
the  phenomena  of  sensation  and  thought  are  produced  in 
similar  fashion,  as  those  of  attraction  and  repulsion  are 
under  other  conditions.  “ If  matter  can  fall  to  the  ground 
then  it  can  also  think,” — Schopenhauer.  In  the  form  of  a 
stone  it  falls  to  the  ground ; in  the  form  of  a muscle  it  con- 
tracts ; in  the  form  of  living  nerve-substance  it  becomes 
capable  of  feeling  and  of  thinking,  or  rises  into  self- 
consciousness.  The  development  of  mind  from  matter  is 
indeed  one  of  the  the  latest,  most  difficult  and  most  com- 
plicated triumphs  of  physical  forces,  and  is  the  product  of 


VALUE  OF  MATTER. 


53 


a protracted  toil,  rising  from  step  to  step,  through  countless 
centuries,  till  reaching  the  height  of  humanity.  Nor  can 
we  say  what  shall  be  brought  forth  of  similar  fruit  by  the 
coming  ages ; we  must  confess  that  perhaps  as  yet  we  see 
only  the  incomplete,  the  imperfect,  and  that  perchance  we 
have  no  conception  of  what  matter  may  yet  be  able  to 
accomplish  in  its  future  evolution  in  mental  phaenomena  or 
faculties,  by  further  complications  and  yet  more  highly 
developed  forms  of  motion. 

“The  opinion  that  spirit  has  created  matter,”  says  the 
anonymous  author  of  the  Elements  of  Social  Science , 
(London,  1854,)  “is  an  utterly  groundless  hypothesis, 
founded  on  no  shadow  of  proof.  There  is  not  the  smallest 
analogy  in  its  favor,  and  it  would  appear  as  if  human  reason 
were  yet  in  its  childhood.  In  how  much  is  it  the  least 
more  conceivable  that  spirit  should  be  infinite  than  that 
matter  should  be  ? It  is  indeed  much  more,  infinitely  more 
inconceivable  ; for  while  we  can  find  no  possible  reason 
why  matter  should  not  be  infinite,  but  are  forced  to  that 
conclusion  by  the  study  of  nature,  we  can  on  the  other 
hand  find  no  possible  reason  in  nature  why  spirit  should  be 
infinite,  but  are  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  not  infi- 
nite. Spirit  is  a manifestation  of  life,  and  all  life,  by  the 
law  of  its  being,  is  subject  to  change  and  therefore  to  death. 
Spirit  is  perishable,  for  it  is  absolutely  indivisible  from  the 
perishable  forms  of  matter,  and  it  is  a wholly  natural  force, 
not  foreign  to  other  natural  forces,  but  indivisibly  bound  up 
with  all  other  in  mutual  interdependence.  . . . The  spirit 
which  designs  in  man  is  indissolubly  bound  up  with  a 
living  organized  brain.  To  maintain  that  the  designer  of 
the  cosmical  plan  is  a pure  spirit  is  to  argue  against  all 
analogy.  According  to  our  experience  spirit  is  without 
exception  found  in  conjunction  with  a brain,  and  never 
creates  matter.  ...  To  separate  matter  from  spirit,  bodies 
from  souls,  is  to  destroy  the  truth  of  nature  ; to  place  one 
above  the  other  is  a monstrous  presumption  which  destroys 
the  unity  of  the  universe.” 


54 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


“ Divorced  from  matter,”  says  Tyiidall,  “where  is  life 
to  be  found  ? Whatever  our  faith  may  say,  our  knowledge 
shows  them  to  be  indissolubly  joined.  Every  meal  we  eat, 
and  every  cup  we  drink,  illustrates  the  mysterious  control 
of  Mind  by  Matter.” 

There  are  philosophers  who,  in  order  to  escape  from  the 
consequences  of  these  or  of  similar  considerations,  go  so 
far  in  their  spiritualistic  presumption  as  to  deny  or  to 
throw  doubt  upon  the  existence  of  matter  as  such.  The 
logical  fallacy  thus  made  has  been  cogently  exposed  by 
Stanski  (Sur  la  spontantite  de  la  matilrc , Paris,  1873.)  It 
lies  in  this,  that  the  unknoiun  idiosyncrasy  of  matter 
(compare  the  chapter  on  the  infinity  of  matter)  is  taken  for 
matter  itself.  We  indeed  do  not  know  what  matter  is  in 
itself,  any  more  than  we  know  what  force  is  in  itself.  We 
do  not  even  know  whether  matter  is  single  and  simple,  or 
if  it  is  made  up  of  the  60 — 70  known  chemical  elements. 
But  this  we  know  with  all  certitude,  that  something  is  there 
which  attracts,  repels,  resists,  moves,  evolves  the  phenom- 
ena of  light  or  of  heat,  and  that  when  this  something  is 
taken  away,  the  phenomena  or  activities  evolved  by  it  come 
to  an  end.  This  something  is  that  which  we  call  matter  ; 
the  phenomena  mentioned  are  its  actions  ; and  the  cause  of 
these  actions  is  the  force  inherent  in  the  matter.  It  is  really 
comical  that  these  philosophic  gentry,  after  they  fancy  they 
have  demonstrated  the  non-existence  of  matter  and  have 
shown  that  it  is  merely  a thing  of  thought,  yet  continue  in 
their  writings  and  expositions  to  speak  again  and  again  of 
matter  and  its  effects.  Did  they  care  to  be  consistent,  they 
should  begin  by  denying  their  own  existence,  for  this 
wholly  consists  of  matter,  and  should  regard  themselves  as 
non-existent  appearances,  or  phenomenal  modes  of  an 
unknown  something,  or  as  the  product  of  their  own  imagi- 
nation ! With  such  ghostly  antagonists  one  would  readily 
waive  all  further  discussion,  even  admitting — a thing  which 
has  never  been  seriously  denied  — that  there  are  a number 
of  properties  of  bodies  which  do  not  inhere  in  them  as  such, 


VALUE  OF  MATTER.  55 

but  which  find  their  basis  in  the  creation  of  our  sense- 
organs. 

After  all  that  has  been  said,  it  scarcely  needs  any  further 
demonstration  that  matter  in  reality  is  not  that  empty  thing, 
furnished  with  a set  of  negative  attributes,  which  it  was  so 
erroneously  represented  to  be,  but  in  truth  is  the  very 
opposite.  Matter  is  not  dead,  inanimate  or  lifeless,  but  — 
as  will  be  more  fully  shown  in  a later  chapter  — is  in  motion 
everywhere  and  is  full  of  most  active  life.  It  is  not  shape- 
less ; but  — as  again  a subsequent  chapter  will  show — form, 
as  well  as  motion,  is  its  necessary  and  inseparable  attribute. 
Nor  is  it  crude,  as  badly  informed  people,  using  the  word 
in  a bad  sense,  will  have  it,  but  is  so  infinitely  delicate  that 
all  conception  of  it  fails  us.  It  is  not  worthless,  but  is  the 
common  mother  and  generatrix  of  all  that  exists  or  is  com 
ing  into  existence,  and  is  thus  of  the  highest  importance. 
It  is  not  senseless,  spiritless  or  thoughtless,  but  is  full  of  the 
most  delicate  sensibility  and  capable  of  the  highest  evolu- 
tion of  thought  in  the  living  creatures  that  proceed  there- 
from stage  by  stage.  Neither  is  it  unconscious,  but  in  its 
gradual  earthly  process  of  evolution  and  development  it 
evolves  all  imaginable  stages  of  consciousness  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest.  Further  and  lastly  it  is  not  unpro- 
gressive and  eternally  the  same  and  unchangeable,  as 
spiritualistic  controversialists  maintain,  but  brings  forth 
ever  increasing  vital  and  intellectual  forces  by  an  ever 
higher  and  enhanced  complexity  of  organic  compounds. 
It  seems  to  be  only  the  impressions  of  our  education,  led 
ever  in  opposition  to  the  progress  of  science  along  roads  of 
spiritualistic  fancies,  which  make  it  so  difficult  in  the  case 
of  most  people  to  see  the  simple  truth,  and  to  let  the  well- 
spring  of  fact  come  forth  in  place  of  phantasmic  specula- 
tions and  imaginations. 

Materialists — albeit  since  the  first  publication  of  this 
book  the  term  has  become  to  some  extent  current  and  at 
each  fitting  and  unfitting  opportunity  the  designation  has 
been  dragged  in  neck  and  heels,  unsuited  though  as  it  is  to 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


56 

the  defenders  of  a philosophy  which  regards  matter,  force 
and  mind  not  as  separate  entities,  but  only  as  different 
sides  or  various  phenomenal  modes  of  the  same  primal  or 
basic  principle  — have  been  overwhelmed  by  their  count- 
less opponents  with  a great  number  of  accusations  and 
charges,  among  which  the  reproach  of  (mental  or  moral) 
“ grossness  ” has  played  a great  part.  They  can,  however, 
console  themselves  with  the  example  of  the  great  Greek 
philosopher  Anaxagoras,  who  was  compelled  to  leave 
Athens  because,  with  a knowledge  of  nature  or  a foresight 
marvellous  for  his  time,  he  declared  that  the  sun  was  not  a 
god,  but  a fiery  ball,  a glowing  mass  of  stone.  His  great 
contemporary,  the  spiritualistic  philosopher  Socrates,  spoke 
of  him  on  account  of  this  theory  as  an  “ impious  man  ” — 
an  epithet  which,  if  well-merited,  must  now  be  applied  to 
the  whole  educated  human  race.  This,  like  thousands  of 
similar  examples,  shows,  as  F.  Mohr  strikingly  remarks, 
that  more  courage  is  needed  to  think  with  consistency  or  to 
proclaim  new  truths,  than  to  charge  at  hostile  cannons. 

For  the  rest,  the  whole  struggle  yet  proceeding  between 
Materialism  and  Spiritualism,  still  more  that  between 
Materialism  and  Idealism,  must  appear  futile  and  groundless 
to  him  who  has  once  attained  to  the  knowledge  of  the  un- 
tenability  of  the  dualistic  theory  which  always  underlies  it. 
All  philosophical  systems  up  to  the  present  time  have 
almost  without  exception  been  more  or  less  dualistic,  that 
is  they  have  made  a definite  severance  between  matter  and 
force,  substance  and  form,  being  and  becoming,  movement 
and  mover,  nature  and  spirit,  world  and  god,  body  and 
soul,  earth  and  heaven,  death  and  life,  time  and  eternity, 
finite  and  infinite, — and  all  these  things  or  conceptions  have 
been  placed  in  opposition  to  each  other  and  been  treated  as 
antitheses,  whereas  modern  science  has  shown  that  these 
oppositions  do  not  exist  in  reality,  and  that  the  separation 
can  only  take  place  in  thought.  There  is  no  matter  with- 
out force,  but  neither  is  there  any  force  without  matter;  there 
is  no  mind  without  matter,  but  neither  is  there  any  matter 


VALUE  OF  MATTER. 


57 


without  mind ; there  is  no  nature  without  arrangement,  but 
there  is  also  no  arrangement  without  nature  ; there  is  no 
earth  without  heaven,  but  neither  is  there  a heaven  without 
earth  ; there  is  no  time  without  eternity  ; and  there  is  no 
eternity  without  time  ; there  is  no  finite  without  infinite, 
neither  is  there  an  infinite  without  a finite. 

“ Natur  ist  weder  Kern  noch  Schale, 

Alles  ist  sie  mit  Einemmale.” 

(“  Nature  is  neither  kernel  nor  shell,  but  is  both  at  the 
same  time.”) — Goethe. 

Science  is  not  idealistic,  nor  spirtualistic,  nor  material- 
istic, but  simply  natural  ; she  seeks  to  learn  everywhere  facts 
and  their  logical  corollaries,  without  doing  homage  in 
advance  to  a system  in  this  or  in  that  direction.  Systems 
can  generally  include  not  the  whole , but  only  half  the  truth, 
and  offer  to  investigation  certain  hard  and  fast  lines  which, 
in  its  irresistible  progress,  it  is  compelled,  or  may  be  com- 
pelled, to  overstep  every  moment.  “ Science,”  says  Grove 
‘‘should  have  neither  desires  nor  prejudices;  truth  should 
be  her  sole  aim.” 


Motion. 


Tldvra  f)ti  (All  things  flow.) — Heraklitus  ok  Ephesus. 

Wherever  our  eyes  dwell  on  the  universe,  whithersoever  we  are  carried  in  the 
flight  of  thought,  everywhere  we  find  motion.—  K.  Zittei.. 

AH  is  dependent  on  Matter  and  Motion. — P.  A.  Secchi. 

Matter  possesses  one  inherent  quality;  it  is  continual  activity. — Gerhardt. 

To  explain  an  appearance  is  to  lead  it  back  to  motion  and  demonstrate  the  con- 
ditions of  motion.— Bellingshausen. 

ONE  of  the  strongest  supports  of  the  natural  order  of 
the  universe  and  of  a unified  view  thereof,  is  the 
knowledge  that  motion  is  a necessary  and  indispen- 
sable attribute  of  matter  and  of  the  whole  organic  and 
inorganic  world.  Physical  astronomy  teaches  us  with  ab- 
solute certainty  that  the  giant  forms  of  the  skies  are  in  a 
state  of  constant  change  in  shape  and  condition  or  consti- 
tution, like  the  forms  of  organic  life  on  our  earth  ; and 
apparently  the  ceaseless  movements  which  they  execute 
among  and  against  one  another,  controlled  by  the  law  of 
gravitation  or  attraction,  are  closely  similar  to  those  per- 
formed under  gravity  by  the  atoms  and  molecules,  the 
finest  constituent  parts  of  each  body  or  material  form. 
For  if,  as  Secchi  says,  the  infinitely  great  is  the  province 
of  the  astronomer,  while  that  which  we  may  call  the  infi- 
nitely minute  is  the  realm  of  the  physicist  and  of  the 
chemist,  yet  there  is  no  distinction  between  the  fundamental 
laws  of  mechanics  which  rule  over  each  of  these  extremes. 
According  to  the  same  scientist,  physicists  to-day  hold  that 
motion  is  as  indestructible  as  matter  ; and  if  people  have 
gradually  arrived  at  the  conviction  that  no  atom  of  matter 

(58) 


MOTION. 


59 


is  ever  annihilated,  he  thinks  they  will  also  more  and  more 
recognize  the  indestructibility  of  motion  as  a fundamental 
axiom.  In  fact  the  English  physicist  Grove,  in  the  before- 
cited  work,  (p.  16),  proves  conclusively  that  motion  is  the 
most  evident  state  of  activity  or  energy  of  matter,  and  that 
“ of  absolute  rest  Nature  gives  us  no  evidence  ; all  matter, 
as  far  as  we  can  ascertain,  is  ever  in  movement,  not  merely 
in  masses,  as  with  the  planetary  spheres,  but  also  mole- 
cularly  or  throughout  its  most  intimate  structure : thus 
every  alteration  of  temperature  produces  a molecular 
change  throughout  the  whole  substance  heated  or  cooled  ; 
slow  chemical  or  electrical  actions,  actions  of  light  or  invis- 
ible radiant  forces  are  always  at  play,  so  that  as  a fact  we 
cannot  predicate  of  any  portion  of  matter  that  it  is  abso- 
lutely at  rest.”  The  final  result  of  his  investigations  is 
given  by  this  scientist  as  that  all  the  conditions  of  matter 
described  by  him  are  modes  of  motion  ; or  that  all  these 
conditions  ‘‘are  only  matter  moved  or  molecularly  agitated 
in  certain  definite  directions.”  (p.  169.) 

Hence  motion  must  be  regarded  as  an  eternal  and  in- 
separable property  or  as  a necessary  condition  of  matter. 
Matter  without  motion  exists  no  more  than  matter  with- 
out force ; motion  without  matter  exists  as  little  as  force 
without  matter.  Nor  can  motion  be  deduced  from  any 
force,  for  it  is  the  very  essence  of  force  itself,  and  can 
therefore  have  no  origin,  but  must  be  eternal  and  in  all 
places.  Motion  is  everywhere  in  the  universe,  in  the 
small  as  in  the  great.  The  conception  of  dead  or  motion- 
less matter  is  utterly  untenable;  it  exists  only  theoretically 
or  as  an  abstraction,  and  not  in  reality,  like  that  of  forceless 
matter.  F Engels  ( Streitschrift  gegen  Diihring , p.  40) 
speaks  of  a motionless  condition  of  matter  as  “ one  of  the 
shallowest  and  most  absurd  conceptions,  a mere  phantasm 
of  a heated  brain.”  According  to  him  motion  is  the  mode 
of  existence  of  matter.  Never  and  nowhere  has  there  been 
matter  without  motion,  nor  can  there  exist  any.  Motion 
in  the  universal  space,  mechanical  motion  of  smaller  masses 


6o 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


in  the  individual  spheres,  molecular  vibration  as  heat  or  as 
electrical  or  magnetic  action,  chemical  decomposition  and 
composition,  organic  life — each  single  atom  of  matter  in 
the  world  is  in  one  or  other  of  these  modes  of  motion,  or 
in  many  of  them  at  the  same  time,  at  any  given  moment. 
All  rest,  all  equilibrium  is  but  comparative  and  has  only  a 
meaning  as  a transference  from  this  or  that  definite  mode 
of  motion.  For  instance,  a body  may  be  at  rest  mechani- 
cally, i.  e.  in  mechanical  equilibrium  on  the  earth  ; but  this 
does  not  prevent  it  from  sharing  in  the  motion  of  the  earth 
as  in  that  of  the  whole  solar  system,  neither  does  it  prevent 
its  smallest  physical  particles  from  completing  the  vibra- 
tions necessitated  by  its  temperature,  or  its  material  atoms 
from  undergoing  chemical  change.  Matter  without  motion 
is  as  impossible  as  motion  without  matter  ; and  motion  is 
therefore  as  uncreatable  and  indestructible  as  matter  itself. 

In  fact  we  are  incapable,  either  logically  or  empirically, 
of  framing  a conception  of  motionless  matter,  or  of  a mo- 
tionless body.  When  for  instance  a solid  or  heavy  body, 
supported  on  a stand,  continues  in  apparent  rest,  this  rest 
is  in  fact  but  apparent,  being  in  reality  only  an  arrested 
or  suspended  motion,  in  which  two  equal  and  opposite 
motions  balance  each  other.  By  removing  the  check  the 
latent  force  can  at  any  moment  be  re-transformed  into 
dynamic  force  or  work.  The  same  holds  good  of  an  ex- 
tended spring  or  of  compressed  air,  etc.  Rest  must  then 
be  conceived  not  as  incapacity  for  motion,  but  only  as  the 
resistance  between  two  equal  and  opposite  motions.  And 
then  the  apparently  inert  body  is  not  completely  at  rest, 
but  only  appears  to  be  so  in  relation  to  its  immediate  sur- 
roundings. For  it  not  only  revolves  with  the  earth  on  its 
axis,  but  also  with  it  in  its  revolution  round  the  sun,  and 
with  the  latter  again  round  the  great  central  sun  or  the 
great  centre  of  the  milky  way.  “ Everything,”  says 
IV.  Mayer  ( Kosmographisch.es  Skizzenbuch,  p.  217),  is  en- 
gaged in  motion  with  respect  to  its  surroundings.  Every- 
thing moves  with  the  surface  round  the  centre  of  the  globe, 


MOTION. 


6l 


with  this  round  the  sun,  which  ceaselessly  whirls  with  us 
through  space,  and  the  mind  becomes  dizzy  when  it  seeks 
to  unravel  this  Gordian  knot  of  interwhirling  motions.” 
But  even  if  this  movement  of  our  earth  through  space 
did  not  exist,  the  apparently  inert  body  would  yet  appear  to 
move,  inasmuch  as  it  takes  part  in  the  never-ceasing  oscil- 
lations or  vibrations  of  the  interior  and  of  the  surface  of  the 
earth,  which  become  apparent  to  our  senses  from  time  to 
time  in  stronger  and  more  striking  fashion  as  earthquakes, 
volcanic  eruptions,  landslides,  overthrows  of  mountains, 
emergings  of  islands,  etc.  The  firm  earth  resting  on  such 
apparently  unshakable  foundations  is  in  reality  anything 
but  stable  and  immovable  ; it  is  only  owing  to  the  imper- 
fection of  our  means  of  observation  or  perception  that  we 
are  not  permanently  conscious  of  these  never-resting 
movements,  nor  in  a position  to  control  them.  On  the 
other  hand  the  observations  and  investigations  of  geolo- 
gians  have  shown  beyond  doubt  that  a continuous  slow  ele- 
vation of  one,  and  a corresponding  subsidence  of  another 
tract  of  land  occur,  and  that  so  far  as  we  know,  there  is  no 
point  of  the  surface  nor  of  the  interior  of  the  earth  which 
can  be  regarded  as  being  in  a state  of  absolute  rest.  The 
lightest  pulsation  of  the  sea  or  the  softest  breath  of  wind  is 
enough  to  impart  vibrations  to  the  surface  of  the  globe  and 
the  objects  thereupon.  ‘‘As  we,”  relates  W.  Meyer  {loc. 
cit.')  ‘‘were  assisting  Prof.  Plantamour  in  the  autumn  of 
1877  at  the  Geneva  Observatory  in  watching  certain  lately 
discovered  movements  which  the  point  of  support  of  a pen- 
dulum made  with  the  pendulum  itself,  thereby  influencing 
its  period  of  vibration,  we  observed  by  a three-thousand- 
fold linear  increase  the  very  slightest  breeze,  which,  press- 
ing against  the  strong  sandstone  wall  of  the  low  building 
from  outside,  set  the  wall  vibrating.” 

But  even  if  these  cosmical  and  telluric  influences,  which 
impart  some  of  the  motions  induced  by  them  to  apparently 
resting  bodies,  did  not  exist,  they  could  not  by  any  means 
be  regarded  as  motionless,  for  their  interiors  are  continually 


62 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


disturbed  by  a number  of  most  powerful  motions.  For  the 
most  solid  body  owes  its  condition  only  to  the  mutual  attrac- 
tive force  of  its  minutest  particles,  which  continually  oscil- 
late or  swing  round  the  so-called  centre  of  gravity,  and 
without  which  it  would  at  once  fall  to  pieces.  That  these 
particles  are  never  able  to  attain  a condition  of  relative  rest 
is  proved  by  the  universally  present  force  of  heat,  which  is 
known  to  be  nothing  more  than  a mode  of  motion  and 
which,  since  all  bodies  without  exception  contain  heat, 
keeps  these  smallest  particles  or  molecules  in  a state  of 
continual  movement.  With  each  change  of  temperature, 
however  slight,  is  connected  an  internal  motion  ; and  this 
influence  is  sufficient  to  keep  the  whole  of  nature  and  all 
its  substances  and  forces  in  ceaseless  motion  and  change. 
Heat  must  indeed  be  regarded  as  the  sole  moving  principle 
in  the  constant  rotation  of  energies,  without  the  presence 
of  which  a state  of  equilibrium  would  long  since  have  been 
reached  and  therewith  universal  rigidity  have  set  in.  “All 
the  substances  in  nature,’’  says  Clausius  in  an  excellent 
treatise  on  the  nature  of  heat,  “ even  when  they  appear  to 
be  perfectly  at  rest,  are  engaged  in  the  most  rapid  internal 
movement,  and  these  movements  in  the  bodies  are  trans- 
mitted to  the  surrounding  ether,  so  that  all  space  is  contin- 
ually traversed  in  every  possible  direction  by  wavelike 
vibrations,  and  the  perception  of  the  vibrations  is  what  we 
term  heat.”  “ Heat  and  motion,”  says  Du  Prcl,  “ are  the 
two  factors  out  of  which  we  must  construct  the  laws  of  the 
cosmos.’  ’ 

But  even  this  is  not  all  ; for  apart  from  heat-motions 
every  body,  however  solid,  undergoes  a constant,  though 
often  slow  and  unnoticeable  change,  or  transposition  of  its 
particles  and  its  shape.  Even  the  hardest  and  most  solid 
body  of  stone,  which  serves  as  an  example  of  rigidity  and 
immutability,  forms  no  exception  to  this  rule,  and  is,  as 
the  researches  of  chemical  geology  have  shown,  in  a state 
of  constant  inward  change  and  transmutation,  both  on  the 
chemical  and  on  the  physical  side.  As  in  the  organic,  so 


MOTION. 


63 

also  in  the  inorganic  world  a constant  change  of  matter 
takes  place,  and  this  may  be  best  observed  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  mineral  springs.  For  it  is  chiefly  water  — es- 
pecially when  it  is  in  a heated  and  corbonate  laden  state — 
which  initiates  and  assists  each  change,  and  it  does  so  with 
unceasing  and  uninterrupted  efficiency.  After  water  it  is 
the  heat  of  the  interior  of  the  earth  and  mechanical  pres- 
sure, and  on  its  surface  the  influence  of  the  atmosphere, 
which  co-operate  in  a constant  chemical  and  physical  alter- 
ation and  transmutation  of  the  constituent  particles  of  our 
ancient  planet. 

This  transmutation  obviously  occurs  most  actively  and 
most  energetically  in  the  organic  world,  the  very  existence 
of  which  depends  thereupon.  Even  the  province  of  latent 
or  hidden  activity  is  no  exception  to  this,  and  if  our  senses 
or  our  means  of  observation  were  sufficiently  keen,  we 
should  be  able  to  observe  in  this  also  a constant  change  of 
composition  and  of  form,  while  the  external  appearance 
deludes  us  with  the  image  of  absolute  rest.  “Nothing,” 
concludes  Hanste.in  from  his  researches  on  protoplasm,  the 
primitive  form  of  organic  life  (Heidelberg  1880)  ‘ ‘ is  constant 
in  shape  and  mass.  Even  the  outline  and  the  minute  con- 
struction of  the  nucleus  or  seed,  which  perhaps  are  compar- 
atively the  most  constant  in  the  cell,  do  not  remain  the 
same.  Each  moment  the  parts  may  alter  in  number  and  in 
form,  the  body  may  change  its  structure  or  position,  each 
molecular  group  may  now  firmly  hold  together,  now  freely 
dissociate  itself.  Yet  are  the  form  and  individuality  of  the 
whole  thing  steadily  preserved.  ‘ Everything  escapes  and 
nothing  subsists.’  ” 

In  a former  chapter  we  dealt  fully  with  the  law  of  the 
conservation  or  indestructibility  of  force,  in  order  to  show 
that  no  kind  of  motion  can  originate  nor  disappear,  and 
that  motion  must  therefore  be  regarded  as  the  primal  con- 
dition or  in  some  measure  as  the  soul  of  matter.  Before 
this  law  was  known,  it  might  well  appear  to  the  laity  in 
many  instances  that  a movement  disappeared  or  was  de- 


64 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


stroyed  without  leaving  anything  behind  it,  i.  c.  that  it  had 
passed  into  a condition  of  rest.  This  mistake  is  no  longer 
possible,  and  this  belief,  founded  on  mere  outward  appear- 
ance, has  been  discovered  to  be  one  of  the  most  radical 
errors  which  has  ever  ruled  in  science.  Motion  is  as 
indestructible,  as  incapable  of  annihilation  as  force  and 
matter ; it  assumes  other  forms,  other  appearances,  of 
which  the  new  forms  are  equivalent  to  those  from  which 
they  have  arisen.  It  follows  hence  with  absolute  certainty 
that  motion  is  as  eternal  and  uncreatable,  or  as  beginning- 
less, endless  and  originless  as  force  or  matter.  Conserva- 
tion of  force,  conservation  of  matter,  ceaseless  change  of 
motion,  work  and  velocity — such  is  the  general  result  of 
our  present  physical  science.  So  well  had  the  ancient 
natural  philosopher  Oken  understood  this  — although  he 
lacked  the  positive  knowledge  of  the  present  day, — that 
he  made  this  remark:  “Motion  is  from  eternity;’’  and 
on  the  same  grounds  the  philosopher  Descartes  was  led  to 
say  : “ Give  me  matter  and  motion,  and  out  of  them  I will 
build  the  universe.’  ’ The  well-known  physical  law  of  the 
“ inertia  of  matter  ’’  does  not  mean  that  matter  is  inert  in 
itself,  but  only  that  rest  or  motion  once  begun  cannot  of 
itself  change  into  its  opposite,  without  being  counteracted 
by  some  other  force  or  motion.  Rest  is  therefore  not  the 
absence  of  motion,  but  the  resistance  between  two  motions. 
Absolute  rest  does  not  exist  ; it  is,  as  W.  Meyer  says,  an 
exquisite  dream,  a phantom  of  hope  which  the  world 
knows  not,  which  is  without  an  instance  in  Nature.  Na- 
ture itself  knows  no  death,  but  only  change  ; no  destruction, 
but  only  the  passing  over  into  other  forms  of  motion  ; it  is 
an  eternally  raging  whirling  sea  of  motion  and  of  change. 

Ruhe  willst  Du  ? Siehe  doch, 

Wie  so  thoricht  Dein  Verlangen; 

Der  Bewegung  hartes  Joch 
Halt  die  ganze  Welt  gefangen. 

Nirgendwo  in  dieser  Zeit 
Magst  Du  jemals  Ruhe  finden, 


MOTION. 


65 


Und  vom  Fluch  der  Thatigkeit 
Kann  Dich  keine  Macht  entbinden. 

Ruhe  kann  es  geben  nicht 
Noch  im  Himmel,  noch  auf  Erden; 

Und  aus  Tod  und  Sterben  bricht 
Neues  Wachsen,  neues  Werden. 

Alles  Leben  der  Natur 
1st  ein  Meer  von  Thiitigkeiten ; 

Ohne  Rast  auf  ihrer  Spur 

Must  Du  mit  dem  Ganzen  schreiten. 

Selbst  des  Grabes  dunkles  Thor 
Gibt  Dir  Ruhe  nicht  hienieden, 

Und  aus  Deinem  Sarg  hervor 
Sprossen  neue  Lebensbliithen. 

(“Dost  thou  ask  for  rest?  See  then  how  foolish  is  thy 
desire  ; the  stern  yoke  of  motion  holds  in  harness  the  whole 
universe.  Nowhere  in  this  age  canst  thou  ever  find  rest, 
and  no  power  can  deliver  thee  from  the  doom  of  activity. 
Rest  is  not  to  be  found  either  in  heaven  or  on  earth,  and 
from  death  and  dying  break  forth  new  growth,  new  birth. 
All  the  life  of  nature  is  an  ocean  of  activity  ; following  on 
her  footsteps  without  ceasing  thou  must  march  forward 
with  the  whole.  Even  the  dark  portal  of  death  gives  thee 
no  rest,  and  out  of  thy  coffin  will  spring  blossoms  of  a 
new  life.”) 

The  eternity  of  motion  and  its  necessary  existence  were 
laid  down  as  axioms  long  ago  by  the  most  ancient  Greek 
philosophers  who  lived  prior  to  the  Socratic  age.  Especially 
did  the  atomists,  Lenkippus  and  Demokritus  and  their 
famous  diciples  Epikurus  and  Lucretius,  regard  it  as  self- 
evident  that  the  atoms,  out  of  which  proceed  all  existence, 
should  be  considered  as  having  been  in  motion  from  all 
eternity.  On  the  other  hand,  Anaxagoras  (500  B.  C.)  was 
the  first  who  divided  spirit  from  matter,  and  derived  motion 
from  the  activity  of  a reasoning  ordering  spirit  (vovr.)  He 
was  followed  by  Plato’s  pupil  Aristotle,  who  also  held  mat- 
ter to  be  incapable  of  self-movement  and  maintained  the 


66 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


necessity  of  the  existence  of  a world-moving  spirit  or 
reason,  or  a primurn  ?nobile,  not  moved  by  anything  else. 
This  opinion,  which  was  thoroughly  acceptable  to  the  Chris- 
tian conception  of  God,  was  sustained  by  the  powerful 
influence  of  the  Aristotelian  philosophy  down  to  the  times 
of  Descartes  and  Spinoza.  Thus,  the  great  mathematician 
Newton , the  discoverer  of  the  laws  of  gravitation,  considers 
matter  as  originating  and  set  in  movement  by  the  will  of 
God.  Leibnitz  (1646-1716,)  one  of  the  most  comprehensive 
minds  that  ever  existed,  was  the  first  to  venture  upon  stat- 
ing once  more  that  motion  was  self-originated.  “Every- 
where,” he  says,  “there  is  activity,  and  I give  it  a firmer 
ground  than  does  the  ruling  philosophy,  for  I am  of  opinion 
that  there  are  no  bodies  without  motion,  and  no  substances 
without  mighty  energies.”  According  to  this  view,  matter 
is  neither  dead  nor  inert,  and  is  not  impelled  nor  driven 
from  outside  in  some  fashion  by  some  dcus  ex  machina,  but 
has  in  itself  force  and  resistance.  The  conception  of 
dead  matter  is  a mere  abstraction,  answering  to  nothing 
real,  for  matter,  as  we  know  experimentally,  is  everywhere 
full  of  life  and  motion  and  bears  within  itself  its  formative 
energies.  Just  the  same  view  relating  to  matter  was 
maintained  by  the  materialistic  philosophers  of  the  eight- 
eenth century.  According  to  Holbach  ( Syst'cme  de  la 
Nature')  the  world  is  nothing  more  than  matter  and 
motion  and  an  endless  concatenation  of  causes  and  effect. 
Everything  in  the  universe  is  in  constant  flow  and  change, 
and  all  rest  is  but  apparent.  Matter  and  motion  are 
eternal.  Diderot  and  his  successors  held  the  same  opinions. 

And  all  this  is  entirely  borne  out  by  modern  science. 
The  investigation  of  motion  is  her  peculiar  task,  and  her 
province  embraces  everything  that  may  be  traced  back  to 
motion.  Matter  in  motion  or  capable  of  motion  is  or  must 
be  her  first  and  last  word.  “Eternal  motion  in  infinitely 
manifold  forms,”  says  L.  K.  Popow  “grouping  itself  to- 
gether and  dissociating  itself,  but  never  wholly  disappear- 
ing— -that  is  the  nature  of  the  cosmos  as  a whole.” 


Form. 


The  mass  of  living  things  does  not  present  itself  to  us  as  the  carrying-out  of  a 
reasoned,  designed  and  followed  plan,  but  as  a historical  result;  that  is,  as 
the  continually  modified  outcome  of  a number  of  causes  which  have  acted 
successively,  and  in  which  there  is  a cause  for  each  accident  and  each 
irregularity  — the  plan  has  no  existence  save  in  appearance.  Forces  necessa- 
rily work  blindly,  and  existence  arises  from  their  co-operation.  If  any  one 
imagines  that  nature  works  on  a serial  plan,  he  will  find  himself  mistaken. 
The  series  is  a result,  not  a thought,  not  a design  of  nature  : it  is  nature  itself. 
— It  is  however,  perfectly  obvious  that  if  the  forces  of  the  whole  universe 
constantly  act  uniformly  upon  our  globe,  their  work  must  form  a complete 
and  perfectly  graduated  series  — Jouvencel. 

This  formative  law  is  and  remains  a purely  teleological,  incomprehensible,  im- 
material principle,  in  its  essence  identical  with  vital  force. — Haeckel. 

Nature  is  generally  more  simple  than  our  conception  thereof ; we  begin  with  very 
complicated  theories  and  end  with  the  most  simple. — Du  Prel. 

THE  idea  of  form  can  no  more  be  separated  from  that 
of  matter  than  can  those  of  force  or  of  movement  be 
separated  from  it.  A shapeless  matter  is  a nonentity, 
neither  logically  conceivable  nor  empirically  present  in 
nature.  Let  anyone  think  of  matter  as  he  will,  he  can  only 
think  of  it  under  some  form,  even  if  it  be  an  embryological 
or  incomplete  one  ; and  experience  shows  that  even  that 
chaotic  mass  of  matter  or  primal  world-mist,  which  must 
be  regarded  as  the  embryo  of  future  worlds  and  solar  sys- 
tems, appears  to  the  observer  under  the  most  varied  forms. 
Form  however  did  not  spring  from  matter,  as  Minerva  did 
from  the  head  of  Jove,  but  in  the  perfection  in  which  we 
now  see  it  is  the  result  of  slow  and  laborious  evolution, 
which  took  millions  upon  millions  of  years  in  the  doing. 
And  indeed  this  evolution  proceeded  in  such  fashion  that 
no  doubt  remains  that  we  cannot  speak  even  in  the  very 

(67) 


68 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


widest  sense  of  a preconceived  plan  or  a preordained 
formal  order,  but  that  all  militates  most  emphatically  in 
favor  of  Nature’s  own  action  in  the  moulding  of  her  form 
without  any  previous  design.  But  since  this  action  had 
occasion  ever  to  develop  itself  under  external  circumstances 
that  were  slowly  and  gradually  changing  in  every  direction 
in  a uniform  manner  and  without  interruption,  it  is  obvious 
that  an  apparent  order  and  an  apparent  plan  should  have 
arisen  ; that  is  to  say,  that  a perfectly  graduated  series  of 
more  and  more  perfect  forms  should  have  developed.  Had 
these  forms  been  in  any  way  imposed  upon  nature  from 
without  or  from  above,  or  were  they  — to  say  the  least — 
the  outcome  of  preconceived  ideas  or  of  firmly-grounded 
principles,  then  would  the  processes  be  wholly  incompre- 
hensible by  which  were  shaped,  step  by  step,  the  forms  of 
the  universe,  or  of  the  different  solar  and  planet  systems, 
or  of  our  earth  with  its  living  organic  or  inorganic  forma- 
tions. In  all  these  formations  do  we  behold  so  much  in  the 
shape  of  accident,  irregularity,  imperfection  and  depen- 
dence on  changing  circumstances  or  conditions  that  the 
theory  of  a pre-ordained  formal  arrangement  is  met  by 
insuperable  difficulties.  On  the  other  hand,  the  endless 
astonishing  variety  of  formations  in  nature,  in  which  an 
absolute  repetition  is  never  found,  is  the  best  proof  of  the 
eternal  internecine  conflict  in  matter,  evoked  by  the  conflict 
of  the  forces  at  work  therein.  Let  anyone  study  the  won- 
derful and  beautiful  forms  of  snowflakes  or  snow-stars  fall- 
ing to  the  ground  on  a cold  winter’s  day,  and  he  can  con- 
vince himself  that  one  day  the  forms  are  quite  different 
from  those  of  the  day  before  or  of  the  day  after,  although 
the  conditions  may  differ  but  in  the  very  smallest  degree. 
Nevertheless  this  minute  difference  has  sufficed  to  evolve 
these  very  different  forms  ; it  shows  that,  as  Cams  Sterne 
(, Sein  und  Werden)  says,  ‘ ‘ each  of  these  fugitive  forms  is 
the  exact  expression  of  a special  complex  relation  between 
the  moisture,  motion,  pressure,  temperature,  rarity,  elec- 
trical tension  and  chemical  composition  of  the  air  that  pre* 


FORM. 


69 


vailed  during  their  formation.  With  a many-sidedness  of 
ideas,  which  anyone  engaged  in  the  drawing  of  patterns 
and  designs  for  fabrics  might  envy,  the  intrinsic  faculties 
of  the  simplest  and  most  indifferent  compounds  we  know 
of  show  themselves  thus  in  opposition  to  the  moulding 
influences  of  the  outer  world.” 

Still  more  does  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  organic 
world  prove  most  conclusively — since  herein  the  strife  of 
forms  in  nature  has  reached  its  highest  point  — that  form  is 
nothing  more  than  the  necessary  result  of  material  actions 
and  counteractions.  Slowly  and  only  with  the  help  of  an 
almost  unending  series  of  years  have  these  organic  forms 
attained  their  present  perfection  and  variety,  and  now  re- 
veal to  us  in  this  fashion  all  imaginable  varieties  and 
transitions,  and  a ceaseless  interchange  of  form  and  mode 
of  living,  according  to  the  variations  of  the  external  and  in- 
ternal influences  under  which  they  lived  or  were  constrained 
to  live.  Only  through  countless  transitions  and  transfor- 
mations could  they  evolve  the  vegetable  and  animal  worlds 
from  the  scantiest  and  most  imperfect  beginnings  up  to  the 
present  wealth  of  forms,  and  this  we  shall  show  and  illus- 
trate more  fully  in  a later  chapter.  None  of  these  forms, 
whether  they  belong  to  our  own  age  or  to  prehistoric  ages, 
manifest  in  any  one  instance  fixed  character,  which  they 
preserve  unchanged  as  a distinct  type  throughout  varying 
external  circumstances.  On  the  contrary  ; everywhere  this 
type  is  easily  changed,  and  there  is  no  type  of  any  organic 
group  of  which  there  cannot  be  found  the  most  striking 
exceptions  and  variations.  Indeed,  by  virtue  of  the  proofs 
yielded  by  the  theory  of  evolution,  there  can  be  no  doubt, 
that  the  types,  or  organic  phyla,  which,  at  their  furthest 
points,  appear  most  severed  from  each  other  and  of  the 
most  diverse  kind,  such  as  the  birds  and  reptiles  or  the 
fishes  and  the  higher  Rotifera,  are  closely  connected  at  their 
points  of  origin,  and  that  everywhere  a higher  type  can  be 
educed  from  a lower,  and  a lower  from  one  still  further 
beneath  it.  All  this  shows  that  form  is  not  a firmly  fixed 


7o 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


nor  a pre-ordained  type,  but  is  more  or  less  accidental, 
that  it  is  not  original  but  proceeding  from  gradual  amend- 
ment, not  essential  but  superficial,  and  dependent  upon 
circumstances  without  which  a material  entity  cannot  be 
conceived. 

A yet  stronger  argument  in  favor  of  this  theory  is  found 
in  the  single  fact  that  — as  has  been  proved  beyond  doubt 
by  modern  biological  science — the  whole  range  of  the 
organic  world  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  from  the 
simplest  to  the  most  complex  forms,  has  been  made  up  of  a 
single  and  very  simple  form-element  and  from  its  products, 
the  cell , and  that  this  simple  form,  which  consists  of  enclo- 
sure, contents,  and  nucleus,  arises  again  from  a yet  simpler 
original  compound  of  matter,  viz.  the  protoplasm,  or  forma- 
tive matter.  This  protoplasm  or  living  matter,  the  re- 
markable vital  properties  of  which  are  due  to  the  peculiar 
chemical  and  physical  properties  of  the  carbon  it  encloses, 
and  of  its  compounds,  presents  itself  in  a semi-coagulated, 
homogeneous  form  of  larger  or  smaller  bodies  of  albumen, 
capable  of  nutrition  and  reproduction,  in  which  all  organic 
functions  are  not,  as  in  the  higher  animals,  discharged  by 
special  organs,  but  are  the  immediate  outcome  of  the  un- 
formed organic  material.  These  forms  thus  stand  on  the 
border-land  between  organic  and  inorganic  bodies  and 
clearly  reveal  to  us  how  organic  beings  are  gradually  de- 
veloped out  of  more  or  less  formless  compounds  of  matter, 
through  influences  and  circumstances  which  will  be  more 
fully  investigated  in  a later  chapter. 

* What  the  cell  is  to  the  organic,  the  crystal  is  to  the  in- 
organic world,  although  we  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be 
led  away  into  the  false  idea  that  the  two  kingdoms  can  be 
sharply  divided  off  by  this  difference  of  shape,  and  that 
they  can  be  separately  built  up  on  these  foundations  of 
completely  distinct  forms.  For  as  the  cell  springs  from 
the  protoplasm,  so  does  the  crystal  form  itself  out  of  the 
shapeless  mother-ley  or  out  of  previously  amorphous,  i.  e. 
formless  bodies  by  mere  re-arrangement  of  atoms,  and,  in 


FORM. 


71 


doing  so,  manifests  very  striking  signs  of  an  inner  life, 
which  do  not  allow  us  to  look  on  it  as  a mere  aggrega- 
tion of  lifeless  matter,  but  show  manifold  resemblances  to 
the  internal  processes  of  plant  and  animal  life.  In  point  of 
fact,  the  remarkable  proteid  or  albuminoid  crystals,  discover- 
ed by  Reichert  in  1849,  or  Ndgeli's  so-called  “crystalloids,” 
which  behave  exactly  like  organic  bodies  and  exhibit  all 
the  peculiar  properties  of  protoplasm,  practically  fills  up 
the  apparent  gulf  between  cell  and  crystal  or  between  the 
inorganic  world  and  the  organized  cellular  formations  of 
the  plant  and  animal  worlds.  In  fact,  a crystalloid  can 
only  be  regarded  as  a crystallized  cell  or  as  a cell-like 
crystal ; we  are  constrained  to  agree  with  Nageli  when, 
basing  his  opinion  on  such  facts,  he  declares  that  the  dif- 
ference between  organic  and  inorganic  is  no  other  than 
that  which  exists  between  the  simple  and  the  complex. 

Under  such  circumstances  it  cannot  surprise  us  to  find 
that  the  lowest  living  things,  which  stand  on  the  lowest 
steps  of  organic  existence  midway  between  plants  and  ani- 
mals, the  so-called  protista  or  primitive  life-forms,  manifest 
in  their  various  shapes  a startling  approach  to  the  inorganic 
world,  and  in  contradistinction  from  the  more  highly  de- 
veloped plants  and  animals,  show  mathematical  outlines 
most  closely  resembling  crystals  and  crystalline  forms. 
“ If,”  says  Haeckel,  ( The  Realm  of  the  Protista , pp.  38 
and  46),  ‘‘the  formative  power  of  the  formless  protoplasm 
calls  forth  our  highest  admiration  among  the  remarkable 
Polythalamia,  this  is  yet  increased  when  we  turn  to  the 
nearly  allied  Radiolaria.  In  these  most  interesting  primal 
beings  we  meet  with  the  greatest  variety  of  beautiful  and 
strange  forms  that  can  be  found  in  the  organic  world.  All 
possible  types  which  could  be  placed  in  a promorphological 
system  are  found  embodied  in  these.” — “ We  have  as  yet 
no  conception  of  the  significance  of  these  very  varied, 
strange  and  exquisite  forms,  nor  of  the  way  in  which  they 
are  shaped  by  the  formless  protoplasm  of  the  Radiolaria.” 

From  this  common  root  of  the  plant,  animal,  and  mineral 


72 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


realms  that  whole  rich  world  of  forms  in  nature  with  which 
we  are  surrounded  to-day,  has  gradually  developed  by  slow 
differentiation  and  improvement.  “Just  as  with  crystals,” 
says  Jouvc7icel  (. History  of  Creation , II,  p.  308)  “each 
tetrahedral  and  prismatic  type  is  capable  of  passing  by  con- 
secutive modifications  into  ever  more  complex  forms,  so 
were  the  earliest  primeval  forms  of  life  capable  of  taking  on 
ever  more  complex  forms  by  consecutive  modifications. 
But  as  among  crystals  all  forms,  even  the  most  complex, 
of  any  given  type,  are  obtained  by  a very  simple  process  of 
modification,  viz.  the  formation  of  new  faces  by  a con- 
secutive deposition  of  new  molecules  — so  in  the  case  of  the 
living  thing  even  the  most  complex  forms  can  be  evolved 
from  a given  type  by  a very  simple  process  of  modification, 
which  consists  in  thei  formation  of  new  parts  by  a con- 
secutive addition  of  new  cells.” 

We  therefore  require  no  mysterious  “type-creating 
power,”  no  peculiar  law  of  formation,  no  pre-ordained 
scheme  of  thought  to  account  for  the  existence  of  form, 
but  only  a simple  contemplation  of  nature  as  she  is.  Form 
is  not  a principle  but  a result ; it  is  not  the  execution  of  a 
predesigned  plan,  but  the  necessary  product  of  the  interac- 
tion of  a large  number  of  causes,  contingencies  or  energies, 
which,  blind  and  unconscious  in  themselves,  yet  working 
on  everywhere  and  at  all  times  without  cessation,  cannot 
but  produce  an  apparently  perfect  and  graduated  order  and 
succession.  When  the  ancient  philosophers  of  Hindustan 
and  Greece  could  not  reconcile  the  opposition  between 
matter  and  form  and  sought,  now  to  get  out  of  the  difficulty 
by  the  conception  of  an  eternal  form-design  of  matter,  now 
by  setting  form  against  matter  as  the  higher  and  ruling 
principle,  now  by  treating  both  on  terms  of  equality,  but 
still  as  antitheses,  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  do  otherwise 
at  a time  when  the  principles  of  the  theory  of  evolution  had 
barely  dawned  upon  the  human  mind.  To-day,  when  we 
are  to  some  extent  in  a position  to  follow  up  the  history  of 
the  endless  events  lying  behind  us,  in  ascending  to  thf 


FORM. 


73 


world-embryo  of  primal  mist,  it  should  be  recognized  that 
to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  form  as  is  still  done  by 
many  scientists,  is  as  much  an  error  as  to  exaggerate  the 
importance  of  matter.  The  former  leads  to  Idealism,  the 
latter  to  Materialism  ; but  the  conception  that  form  and 
matter  are  as  indivisible  as  matter  and  force  or  as  matter 
and  motion  can  only  lead  to  that  unified  conception  of 
the  world,  based  on  the  recognition  of  a natural  and  self- 
existent  order  of  things,  which,  taking  its  stand  on  the 
progress  of  science,  is  destined  to  become,  more  and  more 
the  common  creed  of  all  men  of  culture. 


Immutability  of  Natural  Laws. 


The  government  of  the  universe  should  not  be  regarded  as  the  ordainmentof  the 
world-order  by  an  extramundane  intelligence,  but  rather  as  the  immanent 
intelligence  of  cosmic  energies  and  their  proportions.  — Strauss. 

The  energies  working  in  matter  work,  so  far  as  our  observation  extends,  accord- 
ing to  immutable  laws,  which  never  vary,  but  which  always  have  been  and 
always  will  be  valid.— Th.  Moldenhaur. 

If  modern  sceince  denies  miracles,  it  is  only  to  reveal  to  us  a world  which  is  in 
itself  an  everlasting  miracle.— A.  Langel. 

THE  laws  by  which  Nature  works  and  acts  in  her  endless 
movement,  in  her  ceaseless  being  and  becoming,  in 
building-up  and  destroying,  are  not,  as  the  child  like 
phantasy  of  nations  used  to  imagine  them  in  ancient  times 
and  as  weak  and  uncultivated  minds  still  believe  at  this  day, 
laid  down  and  dictated  to  Nature  by  some  lawgiver  or 
lawgivers  standing  outside  or  above  Nature,  but  are  the 
natural  and  necessary  expression  of  the  interaction  of  all 
physical  forces.  By  analogy  with  human  activity  and  con- 
ditions the  inaccurate  and  misleading  name  of  “law”  has 
been  employed  to  express  this  fact.  But  this  analogy  is  in- 
applicable, because  the  phenomena  or  facts  of  Nature,  inter- 
linked by  absolute  necessity,  have  nothing  in  common  with 
the  arbitrary  commands  of  a human  lawgiver.  The  law  of 
Nature  does  not  exist  beside  nor  outside  matter  or  Nature, 
but  is  only,  as  stated  above,  an  expression  for  the  proper- 
ties or  motions  indissolubly  united  with  it.  While  human 
laws  necessarily  presuppose  a lawgiver  or  a controlling  will, 
be  it  that  of  a single  ruler  or  that  of  the  community  at  large, 
it  is  not  so  in  the  case  of  natural  laws,  which  are  not 
imposed  upon  matter  or  upon  Nature,  but  are  inseparable 
from  and  identical  with  her  very  self. 

(74) 


IMMUTABILITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS. 


75 


Hence  it  follows  — as  has  been  proved  beyond  doubt  by 
experience  — that  natural  laws  are  immutable,  that  is  to 
say,  that  they  are  inaccessible  to  caprice  or  to  outside  in- 
fluence, and  that  they  must  be  regarded  as  being  as  eternal 
as  matter  and  as  Nature  itself.  Nothing  can  happen  in  the 
universe,  be  it  the  greatest  or  the  least  of  things,  except  by 
the  influence  and  as  the  result  of  natural  laws.  Rigid  in- 
exorable necessity  rules  the  whole  and  the  course  of  Nature. 
“ Natural  law,”  says  Moleschott , “is  the  most  stringent  ex- 
pression of  necessity.”  There  is  neither  exception  nor 
limitation  here  and  no  conceivable  power  is  able  to  escape 
from  this  necessity.  At  all  times  and  for  evermore,  a stone 
which  is  upheld  by  no  support  falls  towards  the  centre  of 
the  earth  ; never  has  a command  been  given,  nor  ever  will 
such  be  given,  bidding  the  sun  stand  still  in  heaven.  The 
experience  of  more  than  a thousand  years  has  pressed  on 
observers  the  conviction  of  the  immutability  of  natural  law’s 
with  ever  increasing  and  at  last  with  such  absolute  certainty, 
that  not  the  least  doubt  can  remain  as  to  this  great  truth. 
Inch  by  inch  has  science,  in  seeking  after  light,  won  their 
positions  from  the  ancient  childish  creed  of  the  wrorld, — 
wrested  from  the  hands  of  the  gods  their  thunder  and  light- 
ning and  the  darkening  of  the  stars,  and  has  subdued  under 
the  controlling  fingers  of  man  the  mighty  forces  of  the  old- 
world  Titans.  All  that  seemed  incomprehensible,  miracu- 
lous, caused  by  a supernatural  powder,  how  quickly  and  how 
easily  has  the  torch  of  investigation  shown  it  to  be  the  out- 
come of  hitherto  unknown  or  imperfectly  estimated  natural 
forces  ; how  swiftly  did  the  might  of  the  spirits  and  the 
gods  melt  away  beneath  the  hands  of  science  ! Supersti- 
tion must  fall  before  cultured  reason  and  knowledge  must 
step  into  its  place.  With  the  most  absolute  truth  and  wfith 
the  greatest  scientific  certainty  can  we  say  at  this  day  : 
There  is  nothing  miraculous  in  the  world  ; everything  that 
happens,  has  happened  and  shall  happen,  happens,  has 
happened  and  shall  happen  naturally;  that  is  to  say,  in 
a manner  that  rests  exclusively  on  the  regular  working 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


76 

together  or  interaction  of  materials  that  have  existed  from 
all  eternity  and  of  the  natural  forces  united  with  them.  No 
revolution  of  earth  or  sky,  however  violent,  could  have 
taken  place  in  any  other  way  ; no  mighty  hand,  reaching 
down  from  the  ether,  raised  up  the  mountains  and  limited 
the  seas,  nor  traced  their  orbits  for  the  suns  and  planets, 
nor  created  animals  and  men  after  its  own  whim  and 
pleasure  ; but  all  this  was  done  by  the  very  same  forces 
which  at  this  day  still  make  seas  and  mountains,  regulate 
the  course  of  the  worlds  and  bring  forth  living  things  ; and 
all  this  took  place  as  the  expression  of  the  most  stringent 
necessity.  Where  fire  and  water  meet,  there  vapor  must 
arise  and  exert  its  irresistible  force  on  its  surroundings. 
Where  a grain  of  corn  falls  on  the  ground,  there  it  must 
grow.  Where  the  lightning  is  attracted  there  it  must 
strike.  Where  two  bodies  with  chemical  affinity  meet  un- 
der certain  conditions  there  they  must  combine,  and  under 
other  conditions  they  must  separate.  When  an  organism 
suffers  an  incurable  injury  it  must  perish,  and  so  on.  Can 
there  be  any  doubt  about  these  truths?  No  one  who  has 
studied  nature  and  his  own  surroundings  even  in  most  su- 
perficial fashion,  and  who  knows  the  merest  outlines  of  the 
acquisitions  of  natural  science,  can  help  becoming  con- 
vinced of  the  necessity  and  immutability  of  the  laws  of 
Nature. 

“Everywhere,”  says  G.  H.  Schneider  ( Der  thierische 
Wille,  p.  137  et  seq.P)  “we  observe  only  immutable  natural 
laws  and  blindly  working  causes.  Hence  the  ghost  of  a 
personal,  universal  spirit,  interfering  in  natural  processes, 
has  long  been  banished  from  astronomy,  physics  and  chemis- 
try ; no  chemist  now  thinks  of  ascribing  the  union  of  two 
elements  to  the  will  of  a god,  and  no  scientist  now  sees  the 
manifestation  of  the  divine  will  in  any  phenomenon  of 
attraction  or  friction.  The  ignorant  layman  may  believe  in 
a personal  god  ; but  the  scientist  or  the  educated  layman, 
who  is  able  to  grasp  the  fact  of  adaptation  without  assuming 
the  will  of  a personal  god,  would  place  his  reason  below 


IMMUTABILITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS.  77 

that  of  the  simplest  peasant  if  he  believed  in  such  a one 
without  foundation.  . . . Belief  in  God  is  therefore  almost 
confined  at  the  present  time  to  those  so-called  learned  men 
who  know  scarcely  anything  about  natural  processes,  and 
who  are  therefore  compelled  to  fall  back  on  the  will  of  a 
personal  god'  for  the  explanation  of  the  simplest  physical 
processes.”  etc. 

As  with  the  doings  of  nature  so  is  it  also  with  the  doings 
of  man,  which  arise  from  natural  causes  and  influences,  and 
which  similarly  obey  that  inexorable  regularity  which  rules 
throughout  all  existence  and  which  admits  of  no  exception. 
It  lies  in  the  nature  of  each  individual  being  that  it  should 
begin,  exist  and  perish,  and  no  living  thing  has  ever  yet 
formed  an  exception  to  this  rule.  Death  is  the  surest 
calculation  that  can  be  made,  and  is  the  inevitable  fate  or 
end  of  every  individual  existence.  His  hand  is  stayed  by 
no  mother’s  prayer,  by  no  wife’s  tear,  by  no  man’s  wrath  ; 
he  snatches  the  blooming  child  from  the  arms  of  the  des- 
pairing mother  or  the  tender  parent  from  the  side  of  the 
helpless  child  ; he  reaps  terrible  harvests  and  incessantly 
goes  on  heaping  up  hecatombs  of  perished  lives,  the 
destruction  of  which  brings  pain  and  anguish,  trouble  and 
poverty  on  the  bereaved.  “The  laws  of  Nature,”  says 
Vogt , “ are  rude  unbending  forces,  which  know  nothing  of 
morality  nor  of  compassion.”  “Nature,”  says  Die  Prel, 
“is  neither  cruel  nor  loving,  neither  tender  nor  hard-hearted; 
she  merely  acts  according  to  laws,  and  in  the  whole  uni- 
verse notan  atom  moves  except  by  law.”  No  power  in 
the  Universe  quells  the  wrath  of  the  elements,  contending 
against  each  other  and  against  men  with  destructive  violence; 
no  command  from  on  high  checks  the  devastating  fury  of 
storm,  water  or  burning  sun  ; no  call  wakes  the  dead  from 
their  sleep ; no  angel  lets  the  prisoner  out  of  his  dun- 
geon ; no  hand  stretched  out  from  the  clouds  reaches  bread 
to  the  hungry  nor  drink  to  the  thirsty  ; no  sign  from  heaven 
grants  supernatural  knowledge  ; no  light  from  above  gives 
comfort  or  solace  to  the  despairing  soul.  “ Nature,”  says 


78 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


Feuerbach,  “answers  neither  the  questions  nor  the  plaints 
of  man  ; she  inexorably  flings  him  back  upon  himself.”  And 
even  Luther  found  himself  compelled  to  say  in  his  ingenu- 
ous way  : “For  we  see  by  experience  that  God  does  not 
take  care  of  this  temporal  life.”  The  same  thought  is 
expressed  by  Leopardi,  the  famous  poet  of  Pessimism,  in 
the  following  words  ; “ Yet  O Nature,  as  I understand  the 
world,  thou  troublest  not  thyself  in  thy  courses  over  our 
good  nor  over  our  ill.” 

We  know  of  no  “spirit  that  is  independent  of  natural 
forces  in  its  manifestations,”  as  Liebig  terms  it;  for  never 
has  an  unprejudiced  and  scientifically  trained  observer 
discovered  any  such  manifestations.  And  how  could  it  be 
otherwise  ? How  would  it  be  possible  that  the  unchange- 
able order  and  regularity  in  which  all  things  move  could 
ever  have  been  destroyed,  without  making  an  irreparable 
rent  in  the  Universe,  without  handing  over  ourselves  and 
the  world  at  large  to  an  unfathomable  and  unspeakable  arbi- 
trary will,  and  without  making  all  human  science  appear  as 
mere  childish  drivelling,  all  earthly  effort  as  idle  toil  or  as 
a useless  striving  after  something  that  in  a higher  order  of 
things  would  have  been  obtained  long  ago  ? Above  all, 
what  object  or  significance  could  there  be  in  this  whole 
world,  regularly  appointed  and  developed  as  it  is,  if  it  were 
under  the  arbitrary  influence  of  a higher  power  which 
could  at  any  moment  suspend  or  break  through  its  laws  or 
institutions  at  its  own  pleasure  ? 

Such  exceptions  to  the  rule,  such  deviations  from  the 
normal  order  of  things  have  been  called  miracles , and  plenty 
of  them  have  been  put  forward  in  all  ages.  Their  origin 
is  due  partly  to  intentional  fraud,  partly  to  superstitious 
ignorance  and  to  that  strange  longing  for  the  wonderful 
and  supernatural  which  seems  indelibly  wrought  into  human 
nature.  How  plainly  soever  the  facts  may  speak,  it  is 
difficult  for  man  to  persuade  himself  that  he  is  everywhere 
and  under  all  circumstances  surrounded  by  a network  of 
uninfringible  laws.  The  idea  produces  a feeling  of  op- 


IMMUTABILITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS. 


79 


pression  within  him,  and  he  does  not  resign  the  hope  of 
discovering  some  thing  that  might  break  through  this 
network.  The  younger  and  the  more  uncivilized  and 
uneducated  the  human  race,  the  greater  play  must  this 
desire,  have  had  and  the  more  numerous  must  have  been 
the  miracles  wrought ; for  as  Radenhausen  says  : ‘ ‘ the  more 
ignorant  man  is,  the  more  miracles  must  there  be  for  him.” 
Even  at  this  day,  among  savage  and  ignorant  nations  and 
among  the  uneducated  generally,  there  is  no  lack  of  miracles, 
and  there  remains  rampant  a belief  in  goblins  and  diablerie 
and  in  certain  higher  influences  mocking  the  laws  of  nature; 
even  the  shocking  belief  in  witches  and  the  devil,  under 
whose  poisonous  breath  our  unhappy  deluded  race  had  to 
suffer  heart-breaking  tortures  for  such  a length  of  time,  still 
prevails  among  the  lower  classes  of  our  society,  despite  its 
vaunted  high  degree  of  civilization  — not  to  mention  the 
miracles  and  apparitions  to  which  the  priests  treat  the 
unthinking  multitude  every  now  and  then  in  various  places 
and  which  prove  such  great  and  highly  remunerative 
attractions.  It  would  be  an  insult  t c the  intelligence  of  our 
readers,  were  we  to  further  expatiate  on  the  physical 
impossibility  of  miracles.  No  educated  man  who  has  ac- 
quired but  the  most  superficial  knowledge  of  nature,  still 
less  a man  proficient  in  science,  can  at  this  day  believe  in  a 
miracle  or  in  the  possibility  of  anything  happening  in 
opposition  to  the  recognized  laws  of  Nature.  We  only 
consider  it  most  remarkable  that  a man  possessed  of  so 
much  acumen  and  of  such  a clear  mind  as  Ludwig  Feuer- 
bach, should  deem  it  necessary  to  use  all  his  dialectic 
power  to  upset  the  Christian  miracles.  Where  is  the  founder 
of  a religion  who  did  not  think  it  incumbent  on  him  to  usher 
it  into  the  world  with  a flourish  of  miracles?  And  did  not  in 
each  instance  the  result  show  that  he  was  right?  What 
prophet,  what  saint  has  not  worked  miracles?  What  seeker 
after  miracles  does  not  even  at  this  day  find  plenty  of  pabu- 
lum to  satisfy  his  craving  with  ? And  do  not  they  also 
belong  to  the  miraculous,  those  talking  and  dancing  tables, 


8o 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


those  drum-beating  spirits,  those  spiritualistic  mediums  and 
those  beings  of  four-dimensions,  who  rejoice  in  so  large  a 
following  and  have  inveigled  even  men  of  a serious  turn  of 
mind  and  men  of  learning  into  the  meshes  of  their  folly? 
In  the  eyes  of  science  all  miracles  are  alike,  they  are  the 
outcome  of  an  ill-regulated  fancy,  combined  with  an  utter 
ignorance  of  the  laws  of  Nature. 

“ There  are  no  miracles  in  Nature,”  says  the  famous 
Systbne  de  la  Nature , ‘‘except  for  those  who  have  not 
sufficiently  studied  her.” 

‘‘Every  miracle,”  says  Cotta , ‘‘if  it  really  took  place, 
would  lead  to  the  conviction  that  Creation  is  unworthy  of 
the  reverence  with  which  we  all  regard  it ; and  were  there 
any,  mystics  would  have  to  infer  from  the  imperfection  of 
the  things  created,  that  the  creator  also  is  imperfect.” 

‘‘Miracles,”  says  Giebel , ‘‘are  the  greatest  monsters  in 
the  sphere  of  natural  science,  in  which  no  blind  faith  holds 
good,  but  only  the  knowledge  acquired  by  personal  con- 
viction.” 

And  Jouvencel,  the  French  savant,  says  : “ I believe 
neither  in  chance  nor  in  miracle,  but  only  in  phenomena 
regulated  by  laws.” 

Would  any  one  have  thought  it  possible  for  the  clergy 
of  a nation  so  intelligent  as  the  English  to  have  given  in 
the  face  of  the  whole  world  a proof  of  such  crass  supersti- 
tion as  they  did  in  their  controversy  with  Lord  Palmerston 
which  created  quite  a sensation  at  the  time  ? When  they 
moved  the  government  to  have  a day  of  national  humilia- 
tion appointed  for  the  purpose  of  averting  the  cholera,  the 
noble  Lord  answered  that  the  spread  of  the  disease  was 
owing  to  natural  and  partially  known  causes,  and  could  be 
prevented  very  much  better  by  sanitary  measures  than  by 
prayer.  For  having  given  this  sensible  answer,  Lord 
Palmerston  was  taxed  with  Atheism,  a much  more  serious 
charge  in  England  than  anywhere  else,  and  the  clergy  pro- 
nounced it  to  be  a sin  of  the  deepest  dye  not  to  believe  that 
the  Almighty  could  at  any  moment  set  aside  the  laws  of 


IMMUTABILITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS.  8 1 

Nature  as  he  pleased  ! Any  commentary  on  this  would  be 
superfluous. 

Dogmatic  works  declare  that  the  view  that  the  world, 
like  a wound-up  watch,  can  go  on  regularly  by  itself,  is  a 
view  unworthy  of  God  ; in  their  showing,  God  must  be 
regarded  as  the  constant  regulator,  who  either  creates 
anew  or  gets  the  machine  over  all  the  hitches  it  is  subject 
to.  On  that  account,  our  great  master  of  natural  science, 
A.  v.  Humboldt , has  been  censured  by  some  for  having 
represented  the  cosmos  as  a complex  arrangement  of  nat- 
ural laws  and  not  as  the  product  of  a creative  will.  They 
might  as  well  blame  the  natural  sciences  for  existing,  for 
not  a single  author,  but  science  itself  has  taught  us  to  re- 
gard the  cosmos  as  a complex  arrangement  of  unchangeable 
natural  laws. 

Whatever  theological  interest  or  narrow-minded  pedantry 
can  urge  in  opposition  to  this,  is  controverted  by  the 
strength  of  the  facts,  which  in  this  respect  leave  no  room 
for  any  doubt.  To  be  sure,  our  opponents  know  how  to 
adduce  plenty  of  facts  on  their  side  of  the  case.  If  we  are 
to  credit  the  accounts  of  the  Bible,  God  created  the  world 
in  six  days  and  according  to  the  contention  of  theological 
geologists,  has  never  left  off  since,  calling,  ever  and  anon, 
new  entities  into  being.  To  be  sure,  he  once  dried  up  the 
Red  Sea,  so  that  the  Jews  might  pass  over  it,  and  in  all 
ages  he  has  frightened  people  out  of  their  wits  with  comets 
and  eclipses.  The  New  Testament  tells  us  that  he  actually 
clothes  the  lillies  of  the  field  and  feeds  the  birds  of  the  air. 
But  where  is  the  educated  person  who,  at  this  day,  beholds 
in  these  occurrences  anything  more  than  the  results  of  nat- 
ural causes  and  conditions  ? and  who  is  ignorant  of  the 
fact  that  neither  the  lillies  of  the  field  nor  the  birds  of  the 
air  could  exist  if  the  natural  conditions  of  life  remained 
unfulfilled  ? And  lastly,  can  it  be  regarded  as  a very  dig- 
nified view  of  the  Deity  to  imagine,  as  the  great  Newton 
thought  himself  compelled  to  believe,  that  God  represents 
an  extramundane  power  or  force,  which  every  now  and 


82 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


then  gives  the  world  a push,  adjusts  a screw  or  does  similar 
things,  like  Sam  Slick  the  Yankee  clock-mender?  The 
theological  theory  makes  out  — and  it  could  not  very  well 
do  otherwise  — that  the  world  was  created  by  God  faultless 
and  perfect.  How  then  can  it  want  repairing  ? 

It  stands  to  reason,  therefore,  that  the  conviction  of  the 
immutability  of  the  laws  of  Nature  is  the  same  among  all 
unprejudiced  investigators,  who  only  differ  in  the  fashion 
in  which  they  seek  to  make  this  conviction  agree  with  the 
traditional  belief  in  the  existence  of  a personal  omnipotence, 
or  intelligence,  or  creative  energy,  or  so-called  absolute 
power.  Both  naturalists  and  philosophers  have  tried  their 
hand  at  it  for  a long  while  in  many  different  ways,  but  ap- 
parently with  the  same  unsatisfactory  result.  Indeed,  it 
was  scarcely  possible  for  these  attempts  at  reconciling  faith 
and  science  to  prove  successful,  if  carried  on  scientifically  ; 
for  they  either  contend  against  facts,  or  trespass  on  the 
province  of  theology,  or  entangle  themselves  in  contradic- 
tions, or  shelter  themselves  behind  an  impenetrable  obscu- 
rity. Thus,  for  instance,  the  famous  Oersted , the  discoverer 
of  electro-magnetism,  says:  “The  world  is  governed  by 
an  eternal  intelligence,  which  manifests  to  us  its  workings 
as  immutable  natural  laws.”  But  nobody  can  comprehend 
how  an  eternal  and  ruling  intelligence  can  be  in  unison 
with  immutable  natural  laws.  Either  the  natural  laws  rule, 
or  the  eternal  intelligence  rules  ; working  side  by  side, 
they  would  fall  to  loggerheads  at  every  moment  ; the  rule 
of  the  latter  would  render  the  former  useless,  while  the 
working  of  immutable  natural  laws  admits  of  no  exception 
nor  of  any  personal  interference,  and  therefore  can  never 
be  set  down  as  a system  of  government  rule.  On  the  other 
hand  we  cannot  deny  ourselves  the  pleasure  of  noting  a 
sentence  from  the  same  authority  for  the  benefit  of  those  who 
hold  that  this  recognition  of  the  working  of  immutable 
natural  laws  must  need  produce  a feeling  of  alarm  and  de- 
pression in  man.  “By  means  of  this  knowledge,”  says 
Oersted , “ the  soul  obtains  internal  peace  and  unison  with 


IMMUTABILITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS. 


83 

all  Nature  and  is  thereby  relieved  of  that  superstitious 
dread,  which  has  its  foundation  in  the  idea  that  some  su- 
pernatural powers  can  interfere  with  the  order  of  the  eternal 
course  of  Nature.”  The  same  thought  is  expressed  by 
W.  R.  Grove  as  follows  : “To  the  educated  man  the  feel- 
ing of  acquired  knowledge  yields  a higher  satisfaction  than 
the  love  of  the  miraculous  ; ’ ’ similarly  by  Radenhaicsen  : 
“ Self-reliance  must  increase  with  the  knowledge  that  the 
world  is  ruled  not  by  capricious,  unknown  spirits,  but 
by  known  infrangible  laws.”* 

Most  signally  have  those  failed  who  regard  the  supreme 
or  absolute  power  as  so  interwoven  with  the  things  of  na- 
ture as  to  cause  everything  that  happens  to  take  place  by 
his  direct  influence,  though  in  accordance  with  settled  laws; 
or  in  other  words,  that  the  world  is  a state  ruled  by  laws,  a 
kind  of  constitutional  monarchy.  The  immutability  of  nat- 
ural laws  is  such  that  in  no  place  and  at  no  time  has  an  ex- 

* Ever  since  popular  works  have  diffused  the  results  of  modern  science  among 
classes  that  had  not  been  previously  reached  by  it,  cries  of  woe  and  lamentations 
innumerable  have  come  from  all  holes  and  corners,  complaining  of  the  “disconso- 
late nature”  of  these  results,  and  this  wailing  has,  if  it  be  possible,  become  even 
more  frenzied  since  the  appearance  of  the  first  issue  of  this  book.  Complaints  of  this 
kind  are  mostly  uttered  by  ignorant  people  only.  The  exceptionless  regularity 
which  rules  the  World  and  Nature,  and  the  limits  of  which  cannot  be  overstepped 
by  any  individual,  and  the  consciousness  that  nothing  within  us  or  around  us  is 
caprice,  but  that  all  is  necessity,  are  on  the  contrary,  calculated  to  produce  in  the 
mind  of  a rational  being  a feeling  of  humility,  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  repose, 
self-contentment  and  self-respect,  and  to  yield  an  inward  strength  that  does  not 
rest  on  doubtful  fancies,  but  on  certain  knowledge  of  the  truth.  How  beautifully 
is  this  sentiment  expressed  by  Virgil,  in  the  famous  lines  so  felicitously  rendered 
by  Drydeti : — 

“ Happy  the  man,  who,  studying  Nature’s  laws, 

Through  known  effects  can  trace  the  secret  cause  — 

His  mind,  possessing  in  a quiet  state, 

Fearless  of  fortune  and  resigned  to  fate!” 

Any  other  opinion,  which  seeks  to  refer  the  destiny  of  man  to  its  relation  with 
an  unknown,  capriciously  acting  and  ruling  Something,  degrades  him  to  a mere 
toy  in  the  hands  of  unknown  forces,  to  a powerless  ignorant  slave  of  an  invisible 
lord.  “ Are  we  but  sucking  pigs,  who  are  flogged  to  death  with  rods  for  princely 
tables,  that  their  flesh  may  taste  more  savoury?”  (Herault  in  George  Buchner's 
Danton’s  Tod.) — “ He  who  finds  this  theory  of  the  universe  comfortless,”  forcibly 
remarks  A.  Wiessner  (Der  wiedcrerstandene  Wtinderglaube,  Leipzig,  1875,) 
“ philosophizes  with  wishes  instead  of  with  knowledge.” 


84 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


ception  to  them  occurred,  that  under  no  circumstances  do 
they  reveal  the  working  of  a controlling  hand,  and  that 
their  interaction  constantly  takes  place  quite  independent 
of  all  rules  of  a superior  intelligence,  now  building  up,  now 
destroying,  now  apparently  according  to  a design  and  now 
again  quite  blindly  and  in  opposition  to  all  laws  of  morality 
or  reason. 

Some  of  the  facts  that  are  as  obvious  and  as  plain  as  day- 
light show  that  no  guiding  intelligence  can  be  directly  at 
work  either  in  the  organic  or  inorganic  formations  that  are 
continually  renewing  themselves  upon  the  earth.  There 
exists  in  Nature  a tendency  to  form,  which  is  the  outcome 
of  a definite  formula,  and  is  so  blind  and  so  dependent  upon 
casual  external  circumstances,  that  it  often  gives  birth  to 
the  most  senseless  and  aimless  forms,  that  it  is  often  in- 
capable of  surmounting  or  conquering  the  smallest  obstacle 
it  meets  in  its  way,  and  that  it  frequently  obtains  the  very 
opposite  of  the  effect  which  it  ought  to  obtain  according  to 
the  laws  of  reason  or  intelligence.  We  shall  take  the  op- 
portunity of  adducing  an  abundance  of  examples  of  this  in 
a subsequent  chapter,  viz.  in  that  on  Teleology.  It  thus 
happens  that  the  theory  alluded  to  has  found  the  fewest 
adherents  among  naturalists,  who  have  daily  and  hourly 
opportunities  of  satisfying  themselves  of  the  purely  me- 
chanical action  of  physical  forces.  A rather  larger  number 
of  people  have  given  in  their  adhesion  to  a compromise 
which  consists  in  submitting  to  the  force  of  facts  and  ad- 
mitting that  the  present  play  of  physical  energies  is  wholly 
mechanical,  utterly  independent  of  any  impulse  received 
from  without  and  in  no  way  arbitrary,  while  contending, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  this  state  of  things  could  not  have 
existed  from  all  eternity,  but  that  a creative  power,  endow- 
ed with  the  highest  intelligence,  both  created  matter  and 
imparted  to  it  those  forces  and  laws,  binding  them  up  with 
it  by  an  indissoluble  union,  according  to  which  it  should 
work  and  live  ; and  that,  having  done  all  this,  the  creative 
power  gave  to  the  universe  the  first  impulse  to  movement 


IMMUTABILITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS. 


85 


and  thenceforward  subsided  into  inactivity.  ‘ ‘ There  are 
many  naturalists,  ’ ’ says  Rudolf  Wagner  ( Ueber  Wissen 
und  Glauben , 1854,)  who  believe  in  an  original  creation, 
but  who  maintain  that  since  the  creation  the  universe  has 
been  left  to  itself  and  preserved  by  the  excellence  of  its 
intrinsic  mechanism.”)*  In  an  earlier  chapter,  we  have 
already  expressed  at  some  length  our  views  as  to  the  ten- 
ability  of  this  theory,  and  shall  have  to  revert  to  it  again 
hereafter  in  dealing  with  creation  in  detail.  It  will  there 
be  shown  that  the  traces  of  a direct  creation  can  nowhere 
be  found  among  the  facts  at  our  command,  but  that  every- 
thing rather  compels  us  to  set  aside  such  an  idea  and  to 
look  upon  the  eternal  changeful  play  of  physical  forces 
alone  as  the  primal  cause  of  all  evolution  and  decay. 

“I  am  of  opinion,”  said  the  famous  Kepler  long  ago, 
‘‘that  we  should  try  every  other  method  of  explanation 
first,  before  we  take  refuge  in  the  admission  of  creation 
(that  is,  in  miracle,)  for  when  once  miracles  are  admitted, 
every  scientific  explanation  is  out  of  the  question .” 

It  is  no  part  of  the  object  of  this  work  to  take  much  no- 
tice of  those  who  seek  and  find  in  the  province  of  religious 
faith  an  explanation  of  the  problem  of  existence  and  a sat- 
isfaction of  their  moral  wants.  We  are  only  busying  our- 
selves with  that  world  which  is  accessible  to  our  means  of 

*This  view  has  been  gone  into  at  greater  length  and  with  more  detail  by  the 
famous  scientist  G.  A.  Him  in  his  interesting  little  book  entitled  : La  vie  future 
et  la  sciejice  moderne  (1882.)  He  says:  “ For  the  scientist  the  only  necessary  act 
of  the  creative  omnipotence  is  the  creation  of  the  form-producing  elements  with 
their  properties,  and  a first  compound  of  these  which  may  have  had  no  re- 
semblance to  those  forms  now  under  our  eyes.  It  is  the  Fiat  lux  for  everything 
that  fills  space  ; matter,  force,  life.  . . . For  the  scientist  the  universe,  as  it  is  now 
before  us,  is  the  result  of  a gradual  evolution.  The  elements  that  were  originally 
scattered  throughout  space,  have  gradually  approached  each  other  to  build  up 
definite  forms ; but  the  whole  universe  was  virtually  in  the  condition  of  a primal 
mass  of  vapor  and  has  evolved  thence  according  to  the  definite  laws  impressed 
upon  the  elements.  To  say  that  earth,  moon,  sun  and  stars  were  created  severally 
as  complete  bodies,  is  as  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  a scientific  man  as  if,  for  ex- 
ample, one  were  to  say  to  any  one  who  is  not  a scientist : ‘ A tooth  has  been 
created  for  your  child.’  In  a word,  for  the  scientist  Creation  is  reduced  to  a 
single  act  of  the  creative  omnipotence,  while  it  appears  to  the  layman  as  a series 
of  separate  acts  ; and  a perfect  abyss  lies  between  these  two  views.” 


86 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


intelligence,  and  can  find  no  scientific  reasons  compelling  us 
to  believe  that  behind  this  world  there  is  another,  a higher 
one,  independent  of  the  influence  of  the  laws  of  Nature  and 
perhaps  arranged  in  an  entirely  different  fashion.  But  for 
this  very  reason  we  have  not  the  remotest  intention  to  im- 
pugn the  rights  of  those  who  fancy  that  they  can  find  in 
such  theory  any  comfort  for  their  souls.  Let  every  one 
believe  whatever  and  as  much  as  he  likes,  and  let  his  fancy 
have  free  scope  where  science  forsakes  him  ! Faith  and 
knowledge  belong  to  two  entirely  distinct  provinces,  whose 
boundaries  are  constantly  changing,  and  the  change  always 
takes  place  at  the  expense  of  the  former  and  not  of  the  lat- 
ter. There  are  departments  which,  but  a hundred  years 
or  so  ago,  were  wholly  under  the  sway  of  religious  faith, 
and  which  at  this  day  are  occupied  by  science  ; and  as 
time  goes  on,  this  will  continue  to  be  the  case  to  an  ever 
increasing  extent.  “ It  is  impossible, ” says  Virchow , “to 
calculate  faith  scientifically  ; for  science  and  faith  exclude 
one  another.”  Theology  and  Natural  Science  cannot  walk 
peacefully  side  by  side,  and  a theological  or  ecclesiastical 
natural  science  does  not  and  cannot  exist  until  men  drop 
down  ready-made  from  heaven,  and  until  the  telescope 
gazes  into  the  meetings  of  the  angels.  He  who  cannot 
put  up  with  this  and  with  the  naked  truth,  may  cling  to 
faith,  but  for  scientific  investigations  truth  is  the  only  avail- 
able standard.  Nor  is  truth  arid  or  disconsolate  ; for  it 
is  in  the  very  nature  of  true  knowledge  to  restore  more 
with  one  hand  than  what  it  seems  to  take  away  or  destroy 
with  the  other.  It  is  not  therefore  necessary  that  those 
who  love  the  truth  more  than  they  do  Plato  or  Socrates, 
should  follow  the  well-known  advice  of  a distinguished  nat- 
uralist, who  suggested  that  people  might  have  two  separate 
consciences,  a scientific  one  and  a religious  one,  which  for 
the  sake  of  peace  should  be  kept  strictly  separate,  seeing 
that  they  cannot  possibly  be  made  to  agree  with  each  other 
— a system  which  is  technically  known  by  the  name  of 
book-keeping  by  double  entry.  He  who  considers  such  a 


IMMUTABILITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS.  87 

double  entry  as  necessary  or  desirable  for  the  repose  of  his 
conscience,  and  does  not  shrink  from  its  logical  difficulties, 
may  always  put  it  in  practice  on  his  own  account,  but  he 
should  not  seek  to  introduce  it  into  science,  nor  into  the 
rational  view  of  Nature.  Our  English  neighbors  have  suc- 
ceeded in  managing  this  affair  far  better  than  the  German 
scientists,  by  inventing  the  well-known  distinction  between 
first  and  secondary  causes.  No  more  of  that  unnatural 
setting-up  of  two  separate  methods  of  thought  or  of  that 
inixing-up  together  of  the  natural  and  the  religious  view 
of  the  universe.  Everything  passes  off  in  a natural  and 
regular  way  ; a break  in  the  connection  of  causes  and 
effects  is  not  possible,  since  one  secondary  cause  is  neces- 
sarily linked  on  to  another  ; and  if  this  connection  is  not 
found  or  discovered  everywhere,  it  yet  exists  and  its  dis- 
covery is  the  aim  of  science.  But  human  science  does  not 
and  cannot  get  beyond  this  search  into  secondary  causes, 
since  the  totality  of  existence  and  the  order  that  rules  it, 
depend  in  the  last  resort  on  a supreme  or  first  cause,  which 
does  not  indeed  interfere  with  the  ordinary  course  of 
events,  but  which  nevertheless  rules,  guides,  and  governs 
everything — and  is  not  to  be  found  out  by  knowledge , but 
by  faith  only.  This  first  cause  is  synonymous  with  God, 
and  here  begins  the  province  of  religion,  of  the  church, 
of  the  worship  of  God,  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  sci- 
ence as  such,  and  on  which  the  investigator  can  wholly 
turn  his  back  while  searching  into  secondary  causes.  In 
this  theory  God  does  not,  as  he  does  in  the  German  view, 
play  in  some  measure  the  part  of  a stop -gap,  but  rather 
that  of  the  sole  ruler  enthroned  above  the  universe,  who 
does  not  mix  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  but  is  quite 
contented  so  long  as  his  laws  are  in  force  everywhere  and 
secondary  causes  are  at  work.  This  theory  has  the  one 
great  advantage  that  without  touching  upon  or  entirely 
banishing  the  idea  of  God,  it  yet  makes  it  perfectly  unnec- 
essary for  science,  and  leaves  men  free  to  investigate  natu- 
ral laws  without  misgivings.  Scientific  men  are  thereby 


88 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


enabled  to  hold  fast  to  their  Christianity  and  yet  to  allow 
themselves  the  most  perfect  freedom  of  investigation  within 
the  province  of  science.  It  is  true  that  a sound  logic  will 
never  be  able  to  admit  that  from  the  existence  of  the  so- 
called  secondary  causes  can  be  deduced  the  existence  of  a 
supernatural  force  or  power  independent  of  natural  forces, 
which  moreover  never  gives  the  smallest  sign  of  its  exist- 
ence, and  with  which  science  has  nothing  to  do.  Credulous 
spirits  or  minds  who  feel  unable  to  manage  without  some 
spiritist  fealty,  may  amuse  themselves  with  the  fancy  that 
behind  the  impenetrable  veil  of  phenomena  a man  stands 
with  a rod  in  his  hand,  with  which  he  will  one  fine  day 
scourge  all  those  who  during  their  lives  have  not  been  suf- 
ficiently obedient  slaves.  But  thinking  and  liberty-loving 
spirits  will  rather  delight  in  the  idea  that  the  universe  is  in 
reality  a republic  rather  than  a monarchy , and  that  it  is 
self-governed  in  accordance  with  eternal  and  immutable 
laws. 

“Wir  haben  lang  genug  geglaubt, 

Wir  wollen  endlicb  wissen.” 

(Long  enough  have  we  believed  ; now  we  want  to  know.) 


Universality  of  Natural  Laws. 


The  old  myths  disappear,  and  the  isolation  of  natural  phenomena  ceases  as  we 
come  to  understand  that  a few  great  natural  laws  bind  together  and  regulate 
all  the  diversities  that  exist  in  the  universe. — Girard. 

The  spectroscope  teaches  us  that  everywhere  the  same  material  works  in  the  same 
way,  so  that  we  can  designate  force  and  matter,  supposing  them  not  to  be 
identical,  as  the  corner-stones  of  the  universe.—  N.  Lockyer. 

The  universality  of  terrestrial  laws  is  above  all  doubt,  as  far  as  science  is  con- 
cerned.— Dii  Prel. 

WHEN  the  progress  of  astronomy  had  made  it  clear 
that  sun,  moon  and  stars  are  not  lights  fixed  on 
the  firmament  for  the  purpose  of  giving  light  by 
night  and  by  day  to  the  dwelling  places  of  the  human  race, 
but  that  they  are  bodies  existing  for  themselves  — when  it 
became  moreover  apparent  that  the  earth  was  not  a footstool 
for  the  feet  of  God,  but  a dot  or  a speck  in  the  universe,  a 
star  amid  billions  of  other  stars,  to  most  of  which  it  is  very 
much  inferior  both  in  size  and  importance,*  the  human 
mind,  having  been  deprived  of  the  chance  of  drawing 
fanciful  pictures  of  things  within  easy  reach,  did  not  hesitate 
in  giving  all  the  more  scope  to  its  fancy  in  regard  to  things 
far  away  from  these.  Distant  regions  were  then  invested 
with  the  glory  of  miracle  and  of  paradise  ; remote  planets  or 
fixed  stars  were  populated  with  races  having  ethereal  bodies, 
exempt  from  the  oppression  of  matter  and  from  the  natural 
laws  that  obtain  with  us.  Those  who  had  taught  that  this 

* Among  the  billions  of  stars  which  fill  the  vast  realms  of  space  there  are  only 
five,  or  at  the  most  seven  (Mercury,  Venus,  Moon,  Mars,  Jupiter,  Saturn,  Uranus,) 
to  wh  jse  inhabitants,  if  such  there  are,  the  existence  of  our  earth  would  be 
recognizable,  either  with  the  naked  eye  or  by  the  help  of  enormous  telescopes. 
For  the  worlds  of  fixed  stars,  lying  outside  our  planetary  system,  it  stands  to 
reason  that  it  must  be  altogether  unrecognizable. 

(89) 


90 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


earthly  life  was  a preparatory  school  for  a better  life  else- 
where (without  being  able  to  explain  why  there  should  be 
such  a preparatory  school,)  hastened  to  open  to  their  pious 
sheep  a glorious,  boundless  vista  of  a career,  rising  by 
schools  and  by  classes,  from  planet  to  planet,  from  sun  to 
sun,  wherein  the  industrious  and  pious  should  be  ever  at 
the  top,  but  the  lazy  and  godless,  as  usual,  always  at  the 
bottom.  Even  sober-minded  men  of  learning  did  not 
scruple  to  allow  a pretended  “soul-substance”  of  the  de- 
parted to  pass  from  star  to  star  with  the  swiftness  of  light, 
although  they  did  not  seem  to  have  borne  in  mind  that  such 
journeys,  despite  the  fabulous  velocity  of  light,  considering 
the  enormous  distances  and  the  extreme  cold  of  the  ethereal 
space,  must  have  taken  up  terribly  long  periods  of  time, 
spent  with  the  least  possible  amount  of  comfort.*  However 
charming  such  progress  from  the  fourth  class  to  the  third, 
from  the  third  to  the  second  and  so  on,  may  appear  to  minds 
inured  to  school  discipline,  a sober  study  of  Nature,  based 
on  experience  and  observation,  cannot  acquiesce  in  these 
extravagant  phantasies.  In  the  present  condition  of  our 
knowledge  with  respect  to  the  worlds  surrounding  our  earth, 
we  can  declare  with  perfect  assurance  that  the  same  materi- 
als, the  same  forces,  the  same  physical  laws,  with  which  we 
on  this  earth  find  ourselves  moulded  and  surrounded,  are 
found  in  the  All  which  is  visible  to  us,  and  that  they  are  at 
work  in  all  places  in  the  same  fashion  and  with  the  same 
inherent  necessity  as  in  our  immediate  proximity.  Natural 
philosophy  and  astronomy  have  furnished  us  with  complete 
proofs  of  this  in  sufficient  number ; astronomical  science 
indeed  could  not  exist  as  such,  if  the  universality  of  ter- 
restrial laws  were  not  recognized. 

Let  us  first  consider  Gravitation , that  universal  primal 
and  fundamental  force  of  Nature,  by  which  are  regulated 
the  movements  and  the  general  mutual  effects  produced  by 
all  bodies  in  the  universe  upon  each  other.  The  laws  by 
which  these  movements  and  effects  take  place,  or  the  laws 

*Compare  the  chapter  on  “ Innate  Ideas.” 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS. 


91 


of  motion  and  attraction,  are  invariable  in  all  the  realms  of 
space  into  which  the  telescope  peers  and  which  are  reached 
by  calculation.  The  movements  of  all,  even  the  most 
distant,  bodies  take  place  according  to  the  same  laws  by 
which  bodies  thrown  on  our  earth  move,  by  which  a stone 
falls,  a cannon-ball  flies,  or  a pendulum  oscillates.  When 
we  see  the  countless  atoms  of  dust  dancing  in  our  room  in 
the  light  of  the  sun  their  movement  is  governed  (as  Dii  Prel 
remarks)  by  the  same  law  which  guides  the  movements  of 
the  stars  in  the  furthest  realms  of  space  to  which  our  eyes 
can  reach  by  aid  of  the  most  powerful  instrument — that  is, 
by  the  law  of  gravity.  All  astronomical  calculations  re- 
specting the  most  distant  planets  and  their  movements  have 
been  based  on  this  known  law,  and  they  have  proved 
correct.  Everybody  knows  that  by  the  aid  of  this  calcu- 
lation, astronomers  foretell  eclipses  of  the  sun  and  of  the 
moon,  transits  of  planets,  etc.,  with  unfailing  certainty  as  to 
the  day,  hour  and  minute,  and  calculate  hundreds  of  years 
in  advance  the  appearances  and  re-appearances  of  comets, 
those  well  known  knights-errant  of  space,  having  for  their 
orbits  now  an  ellipse,  now  a parabola,  now  a hyperbola  ; 
and  they  do  so  despite  the  many  disturbances  and  irregu- 
larities to  which  the  movements  of  these  bodies  are  liable. 

Astronomers  have  even  succeeded  by  calculations  based 
wholly  on  the  law  of  gravitation  or  rotation  in  determining 
the  presence  of  stars  which  were  only  discovered  by  the 
telescope  when  it  was  known  in  which  direction  they  were 
to  be  looked  for.  Thus,  in  the  year  1846,  the  French 
astronomer  Leverrier  came  on  the  track  of  Neptune , until 
then  unseen  by  any  telescope,  in  directing  his  attention  to 
the  disturbance  shown  by  the  neighboring  planet  Uranus 
in  its  orbit.  When,  in  consequence  of  this,  Galle,  at  Berlin, 
turned  his  telescope  towards  the  specified  place,  he  found 
the  planet  of  which  both  the  spot  and  the  mass  had  been 
already  determined.  Just  the  same  thing  has  happened 
within  the  last  few  years  in  the  case  of  the  intramercurial 
planet  Vulcan,  which  has  not  yet  been  seen  with  complete 


92 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


certainty,  but  the  existence  of  which  is  scientifically  proved. 
But  that  which,  more  than  everything  else,  proves  that 
the  laws  of  gravitation  or  attraction  exist  in  the  remotest 
regions  of  fixed  stars,  which  are  separated  from  us  by 
many  billions  of  miles,  just  the  same  as  these  laws  are  in 
force  in  our  solar  system  or  on  our  earth,  is  the  study  of 
the  remarkable  double  stars , which  have  become  better 
known  only  of  late  years.  These  are  situated  so  close 
together  that  they  can  only  be  distinguished  from  each 
other  by  means  of  the  most  powerful  instruments,  and  re- 
volving around  each  other.  In  their  singular  movements 
they  obey  the  law  of  gravity,  as  do  the  planets  of  our  solar 
system.  Thus,  the  presence  of  a second  body  near  the 
splendid  fixed  star  Sirius  ( a in  Ca?iis  Major)  now  known 
to  be  a double  star,  was  deduced  from  its  peculiar  move- 
ments on  the  basis  of  the  law  of  gravitation,  twenty  years 
before  Clark  discovered  the  star  itself  at  Boston,  on  Jan. 
31,  1862.  It  had  revealed  its  existence,  thanks  to  our  con- 
viction of  the  universal  force  of  gravitation,  before  ever  a 
human  eye  had  gazed  upon  it.  “If anywhere”  said  the 
astronomer  M.  IV.  Mayer , ‘ ‘ we  have  in  this  discovery  the 
most  conclusive  argument  in  favor  of  the  universality  of 
attraction  between  masses  in  the  universe.”  Indeed,  the 
existence  of  these  remarkable  double  stars  shows  that  while 
in  the  fathomless  depths  of  space  the  creative  force  of  Na- 
ture seems  to  love  to  reveal  itself  in  very  much  the  same 
variety  as  here  on  our  earth,  yet  it  never,  nor  in  any  place, 
follows  any  laws  unknown  to  us,  or  others  than  those  to 
which  it  would  have  entrusted  the  building-up  and  the 
governance  of  the  world.  On  the  contrary,  all  these  mar- 
vellous worlds  have  been  evolved  according  to  the  same 
simple  laws  as  those  which  built  and  rule  our  little  earth. 

Astronomers,  confidently  relying  on  the  laws  of  gravita- 
tion, do  not  hesitate  to  authoritatively  lay  down  the  exist- 
ence of  dark  or  to  our  eyes  imperceptible  satellites  of  some 
of  the  fixed  stars,  e.g.  Procyon , as  the  consequence  of  their 
peculiar  movements. 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS. 


93 


It  may  also  be  remarked  that  the  physical  condition  of 
all  the  planets  whose  proximity  to  our  globe  renders  pos- 
sible a sufficiently  exact  determination  of  their  surfaces,  is 
similar  or  analogous  to  that  of  our  earth.  Venus  has  high 
mountains  ; Mars  has  continents  and  seas,  summer  and 
winter.  The  moon  has  mountains,  plains,  valleys  and  vol- 
canoes like  the  earth.  All  the  planets  of  our  system  have 
seasons,  days  and  nights  as  we  have,  although  their  relative 
lengths  vary.  Besides,  they  are  all  spherical  in  shape,  like 
the  earth  ; i.  e.  they  bulge  out  at  the  equator  and  are  flat- 
tened at  the  poles  ; like  the  earth,  they  are  more  or  less 
inclined  on  their  axes  and  have  the  double  motion  of  rota- 
tion and  translation  ; all  these  are  signs  of  a similar  origin. 
Hence  the  genesis  of  our  globe  yields  us  a sure  analogy 
for  the  history  of  the  origin  and  evolution  of  the  other 
planets. 

The  laws  of  light , no  less  than  those  of  gravitation,  are 
the  same  throughout  the  universe  and  the  same  as  on  our 
earth.  Light,  whether  solar  or  artificial,  has  throughout 
the  same  composition  and  the  same  velocity,  and  its  re- 
fraction takes  place  everywhere  in  the  same  way.  The 
light  sent  to  us  by  the  most  distant  fixed  stars  through  a 
space  of  many  billions  of  miles,  is  distinguishable  in  nothing 
from  the  light  of  our  sun  ; it  follows  the  same  laws  and  is 
of  the  same  composition.  So  little  doubt  is  there  among 
learned  men  on  this  head  that  the  different  coloring  of  the 
light  proceeding  from  fixed  stars  enables  them  to  decide 
with  absolute  certainty,  on  the  one  hand  as  to  the  temper- 
ature, condition  and  stage  of  development  of  these  stars, 
on  the  other  as  to  their  individual  and  relative  movements 
in  space.  Thus  we  are  likewise  in  a position  to  determine 
according  to  terrestrial  processes  the  areas  of  the  umbrae 
and  penumbrae  arising  from  solar  and  lunar  eclipses.  Even 
the  ring  of  the  planet  Saturn  throws  a shadow  on  it  and 
receives  in  its  turn  a shadow  from  the  planet.  Lastly,  the 
photographs  taken  of  individual  fixed  stars  prove  that  the 
light  emitted  by  them  contains,  like  sunlight,  chemically 


94 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


active  as  well  as  luminous  rays.  The  same  remark  applies 
to  the  heating  rays,  as  has  been  shown  by  very  delicate 
instruments. 

Like  the  laws  of  light,  the  laws  of  heat  are  the  same 
throughout  the  universe,  heat  being  the  commonest  and 
most  widely  distributed  form  of  energy  known  to  us,  and 
being  at  this  day  universally  regarded  as  merely  another 
form  of  light.  The  heat  coming  to  us  from  the  sun  or  from 
the  other  fixed  stars  works  exactly  according  to  the  same 
principles  as  the  rays  of  heat  do  which  are  emitted  by  our 
earth  or  by  the  hot-springs  found  therein.  On  caloric  cir- 
cumstances depend  the  solidity,  the  fluidity,  the  gaseous 
condition  of  bodies  ; therefore  these  conditions  must  exist 
everywhere  upon  similar  terms,  so  to  speak.  It  has  been 
shown  in  a preceding  chapter  that  the  other  forces  of 
nature,  such  as  electricity,  magnetism,  mechanical  power, 
chemical  affinity,  etc.,  are  so  closely  bound  up  with  caloric 
circumstances  and  stand  to  these  in  such  intimate  relation- 
ship, based  upon  reciprocal  interchange,  that  they  cannot 
be  separated  from  one  another ; therefore  must  all  these 
forces  exist  where  warmth  exists,  that  is  to  say,  everywhere. 
This  is  especially  true  of  the  relation  of  heat  to  the  form 
and  manner  of  chemical  combination  and  dissociation, 
which  must  necessarily  proceed  throughout  the  universe  in 
a uniform  manner,  since  the  experiments  carried  on  by  the 
help  of  spectral  analysis  have  proved  to  demonstration  the 
universal  distribution  of  chemical  elements  identical  with 
those  existing  on  our  earth.  But  long  before  this  most 
recent  and  interesting  method  of  investigation  had  become 
known,  the  same  conclusion  had  been  arrived  at  by  the 
study  of  those  visible  and  tangible  messengers  from  another, 
non-terrestrial  world,  which  we  designate  as  meteorites  or 
meteoric  stones.  Chemistry  has  not  been  able  to  discover 
a single  element  not  present  in  our  world  in  these  remark- 
able bodies,  the  cosmic  origin  of  which  was  for  centuries 
regarded  as  a preposterous  myth,  while  people  on  the  other 
hand  believed  firmly  and  steadfastly  in  downright  impos- 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS. 


95 


sible  things  and  events.  These  bodies  are  hurled  to  us 
from  other  worlds  or  from  the  primal  ether,  in  all  proba- 
bility from  the  very  depths  of  the  space  pertaining  to  the 
fixed  stars,  possibly  as  pieces  or  remnants  of  shattered 
planets  or  dissolved  comets.  Among  the  twenty-one  ele- 
ments or  chemical  groups  found  in  these  bodies  up  to 
the  present  time,  there  is  not  a single  one  alien  to  those 
of  our  own  globe,  and  the  substances  predominant  in  them, 
such  as  iron,  silicon,  oxygen,  are  the  very  ones  which 
also  predominate  on  the  surface  of  the  earth.  Daubree 
has  also  discovered  that  the  similarity  that  exists  between 
these  meteorites  and  the  terrestrial  minerals  increases  in 
proportion  as  we  penetrate  more  deeply  into  the  crust  of 
the  earth,  and  that  several  of  the  minerals  found  at  the 
greatest  depths  (such  as  olivine,  herzolite,  serpentine,)  are 
in  composition  and  condition  almost  identical  with  the  me- 
teorites ; and  lastly,  that  in  closer  proximity  to  the  surface 
of  the  earth  minerals  are  found  which  are  formed  of  con- 
stituents similar  to  those  of  the  meteorites,  but  oxidized 
(united  with  oxygen,)  and  thereby  having  their  mineral 
character  changed.  Daubree  further  succeeded  in  artificially 
obtaining  from  terrestrial  stones  substances  closely  resem- 
bling meteorites.  The  investigation  of  meteorites  has 
shown  moreover  that  the  crystals  distributed  throughout 
their  internal  structure  are  formed  according  to  the  very 
laws  of  crystallization  which  we  recognize  in  terrestrial 
crystals,  and  that  their  forms  in  no  wise  differ  from  those 
known  to  us.  Even  the  microscope,  as  Moldenhauer  re- 
marks, ( Das  Weltall  und  seine  Entwicklung , I,  p.  7),  has 
not  failed  to  render  aid  in  this  direction.  “ It  appears  in 
the  structure  of  the  meteorites,  those  little  bodies  that  fall 
upon  us  from  far-off  unknown  regions,  that  the  internal 
construction  of  alien  inorganic  masses  is  essentially  identi- 
cal with  that  of  our  own.” 

These  facts  alone  would  be  sufficient  to  prove  that — in 
the  words  of  Professor  Spiller — “ the  unity  of  the  forces  of 
Nature  extends  to  the  very  atoms  of  matter,”  and  that 


96 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


the  formative  force  for  each  material  and  for  each  atom 
of  matter  is  the  same  in  the  whole  universe.’’  But  that 
which  was  only  raised  to  high  probability  by  the  investiga- 
tion of  meteorites,  has  been  made  almost  into  a certainty 
by  spectral  analysis,  that  ‘ ‘ language  of  light  ” as  it  has 
been  rightly  termed,  the  glance  of  which  pierces  through 
the  chemical  constitution  of  the  most  distant  stars.  Above 
all  things  it  has  taught  us  that  the  mass  of  the  sun  — and 
indeed  nothing  else  could  be  expected  from  the  fact  of  all 
the  members  of  the  solar  system  deriving  their  origin  from 
the  same  primal  mist — contains  no  other  chemical  elements 
in  its  ardent  or  incandescent  integument  than  those  which 
exist  in  our  earth.  These  elements,  as  everyone  knows, 
are  sodium,  iron,  calcium,  magnesium,  chromium,  nickel, 
barium,  zinc,  cobalt,  manganese,  titanium,  aluminium, 
strontium,  lead,  copper,  cadmium,  cerium,  uranium,  po- 
tassium, vanadium,  palladium,  molybdenum,  hydrogen, 
oxygen,  nitrogen.  There  is  still  some  doubt  about  the 
presence  of  a number  of  other  known  elements,  such  as 
indium,  lithium,  rubidium,  caesium,  bismuth,  tin,  silver, 
beryllium,  lanthanum, yttrium,  iridium,  silicon,  sulphur,  car- 
bon, etc.  Probably  all  the  metalloids  (non-metals)  are  to  be 
found  in  them  ; other  heavy  metals,  such  as  gold,  silver  and 
mercury,  may  be  present  in  the  deeper  parts  of  the  sun  or  of 
its  envelope,  inaccessible  to  spectral  analysis.  The  chem- 
ical composition  of  the  solar  envelope  offers  generally  the 
greatest  resemblance  to,  or  analogy  with,  the  chemical 
constitution  of  meteoric  stones.* 

Of  course,  astronomers  have  not  contented  themselves 

* It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  one  material,  or  one  substance  has  been  dis- 
covered in  the  solar  spectrum  that  corresponds  with  no  terrestrial  one,  and  which 
has  therefore  been  named  helium.  But  according  to  the  distinguished  spectro- 
scopist  Norman  Lockyer,  helium  is  apparently  nothing  more  than  a modified  form 
of  hydrogen  ; and  besides,  Professor  Palmieri  of  Naples  states  that  he  has  lately 
discovered  the  helium  line  in  the  spectrum  of  the  lava  of  Vesuvius.  In  point  of 
fact  it  is  very  possible  that  an  element,  the  presence  of  which  has  not  yet  been 
discovered  on  the  earth,  may  play  an  important  part  elsewhere,  and  on  the  other 
hand  an  element  predominant  with  us  may  only  be  present  to  a slight  extent  in 
the  composition  of  other  stars.  The  general  identity  or  unity  of  materials  is 
therefore  open  to  no  doubt  whatever. 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS. 


97 


vith  merelj  using  the  spectroscope  — which  is  able  to  yield 
such  positive  data  on  the  chemical  composition  of  the  most 
distant  bodies — To  investigate  the  sun,  but,  despite  the 
great  difficulties  involved,  it  has  been  turned  also  to  account 
in  the  study  of  the  planets,  comets,  fixed  stars,  nebulae, 
falling  stars,  etc.  The  result  has  been  materially  the  same 
throughout.  These  enquiries  have  proved  the  truth  of  the 
theory  propagated  by  earlier  astronomers,  viz.  that  the  so- 
called  fixed  stars  are  nothing  but  actual  suns,  in  the  atmos- 
pheres or  luminous  envelopes  of  which  are  found  again  in 
an  incandescent  condition  those  known  bodies,  some  of 
which  have  already  been  mentioned,  like  iron,  calcium, 
sodium,  magnesium,  tellurium,  antimony,  bismuth,  mer- 
cury, hydrogen,  nitrogen,  etc.,  etc.  Hydrogen  appears  to 
play  the  chief  part  in  most  of  the  fixed  stars,  and  to  cause 
the  same  violent  eruptions  and  whirlwinds  in  them  as  it 
does  in  the  sun.  If  all  the  substances  found  in  the  sun  have 
not  yet  been  shown  to  exist  in  the  fixed  stars,  this  probably 
results  from  the  faintness  of  the  spectra,  arising  from  the 
immensity  of  the  distances.  The  same  remark  applies  to 
the  yet  more  distant  nebulae  or  to  those  glowing  masses  of 
gas  which  astronomers  regard  as  systems  of  worlds  in 
course  of  evolution,  and  the  spectra  of  which  denote 
principally  hydrogen  and  nitrogen.  The  comets  have  also 
been  analyzed  by  means  of  the  spectroscope,  notwithstand- 
ing the  dimness  of  their  light  which  renders  accurate 
observation  very  difficult,  and  carbon  and  hydrogen  have 
been  discovered  in  them.  Even  falling  stars  have  been 
submitted  to  the  same  analysis,  and  it  is  claimed  that  car- 
bon, as  well  as  glowing  vapors  of  sodium  and  magnesium, 
have  been  discovered  in  them.  It  need  hardly  be  mentioned 
that  the  light  of  the  planet,  being  borrowed  from  the  sun, 
must  show  the  same  composition  as  that  of  the  sun  itself. 

These  discoveries  form  landmarks  in  the  history  of  science 
and  are  worthy  of  being  placed  side  by  side  with  the  great- 
est discoveries  of  all  ages.  They  prove  that  matter  is 
essentially  identical  not  only  within  our  solar  system,  but 


98  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

in  the  whole  universe,  down  to  the  regions  of  dxed  stars 
and  nebulae.  Now  seeing  that  identity  of  substances  must 
necessarily  imply  identity  of  forces,  and  thac  “the  special 
form  in  which  a substance  produces  its  regular  effect  is  the 
direct  outcome  of  its  chemical  condition”  (Dii  Prel,)  no 
doubt  can  remain  as  to  the  similarity  of  materials  and  forces 
throughout  the  universe  and  as  to  the  similarity  of  develop- 
ment in  our  solar  system  and  in  the  most  distant  heaven  of 
the  fixed  stars  — a view  which  is  now  thoroughly  accepted 
by  all  scientists  who  have  concentrated  their  attention  on 
the  study  of  this  question.  Professor  Kirclihoff  himself, 
the  famous  discoverer  of  spectral  analysis,  has  stated  his 
conviction  “ that  the  substances  and  forces  in  the  whole 
universe  are  essentially  the  same.’’ 

All  these  facts  and  observations — with  those  already 
given  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter — prove  to  demon- 
stration the  universality  of  natural  laws,  a phrase  which  is 
indeed  but  another  expression  for  the  regular  working  of 
matter  and  of  its  forces,  arising  from  its  chemical  and 
physical  nature,  and  these  laws  cannot  therefore  be  con- 
fined to  our  globe,  but  must  act  in  a similar  fashion 
throughout  the  entire  universe.  In  no  part  of  that 
space,  boundless  though  it  may  be,  is  there  a loophole  left 
for  imagination  to  bring  one  of  its  wild  fancies  into  the 
world  and  to  indulge  in  one  of  its  dreams  of  some  fabulous 
existence,  subject  to  none  of  the  ordinary  limitations.  The 
visible  universe  surrounding  us  is  an  infinite  whole,  com- 
posed of  the  same  substances,  borne  by  the  same  energies, 
swayed  by  the  same  immutable  natural  laws.* 

Oerstedt  rightly  maintained,  in  treating  of  the  identity  of 
mental  and  physical  laws,  that  this  universal  application  of 
the  laws  of  Nature  which  are  conceived  by  reason,  presup- 

* Should  the  opinion  of  natural  philosophers  and  chemists  be  confirmed  a 
view  often  expressed  and  becoming  more  and  more  probable  that  in  reality 
there  is  but  one  matter  and  there  is  but  one  force,  and  that  what  we  term  sub- 
stances or  forces  are  only  different  modifications  or  phenomena  or  condition  of 
the  primary  matter  and  the  primary  force,  the  proposition  laid  down  above  must 
become  still  more  simplified. 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS. 


99 


poses  also  a fundamental  equality  of  the  conceptive  faculty 
of  the  intellect  throughout  the  universe.  Should  reasoning 
beings  exist  outside  of  our  planet — and  this  is  probable 
enough,  since  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  the  same  or  similar 
causes  should  not,  under  the  same  or  similar  conditions, 
produce  the  same  or  similar  results  everywhere — their 
thinking  power  must  necessarily  be  the  same  as,  or  similar 
to,  ours,  although  in  degree  or  development  it  may  vary 
to  almost  any  extent.  The  principles  of  the  physical 
development  of  man  are  also  likely  to  be  on  the  whole  iden- 
tical. So  great,  however,  is  the  diversity  of  the  individual 
worlds  in  point  of  mass,  temperature,  density,  illumination, 
physical  condition  of  the  surface,  etc.,  and  so  far  do  the 
phases  of  development  diverge  from  each  other  in  the  in- 
dividual stars,  that  we  have  a perfect  right  to  assume  also 
the  possibility  of  an  endless  diversity  in  the  respective 
organization  of  the  inhabitants  of  each  individual  world. 
We  know  that  adaptation  to  the  surrounding  conditions  of 
life  is  one  of  the  foremost  factors  in  the  formation  and  pro- 
gressive development  of  organic  beings,  and  the  history  of 
our  own  earth  proves  that  relatively  small  differences  in 
the  physical  condition  of  the  surface  of  the  globe,  which 
have  accrued  in  the  course  of  geological  periods  or  epochs, 
have  been  attended  by  the  most  radical  changes  in  the 
fauna  and  flora  of  the  earth  ; and  from  this  we  may  infer 
that  there  exists  an  infinite  variety  of  biological  phenomena 
in  the  cosmos.  In  this  respect,  however,  positive  or  scien- 
tific data  are  so  entirely  wanting  that  all  further  speculations 
on  this  topic  should  be  cast  aside  as  aimless  and  useless. 
One  thing  only,  as  we  have  said  already,  can  be  stated 
with  comparative  certainty,  and  it  is  that  the  identity  of 
cosmical  substances  and  laws  admits  of  the  inference  that 
the  fundamental  principles  of  physical  and  mental  phenom- 
ena, of  organic  and  inorganic  life,  must  be  the  same  every- 
where ; and  that  throughout  the  cosmos,  wherever  the 
material  conditions  are  found  for  the  genesis  or  evolution 
of  living  or  organized  beings,  this  genesis  or  evolution 


IOO 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


will  take  place  with  the  same  energy  and  abundance  as  it 
does  in  our  earth.  In  the  planets  or  moving  stars  especially, 
which  on  mechanical  principles  must  accompany  the  fixed 
stars,  or  other  suns,  as  our  planets  do  our  sun,  though 
perhaps  on  a few  of  them  only,  the  possibility  of  life  at 
certain  times  and  under  certain  circumstances  must  show  or 
have  shown  itself  very  much  as  it  has  in  this  earth  of  ours ; 
for  “the  formation  of  living  matter  denotes  nothing  but  the 
setting  in  of  the  effect  when  the  given  causes  are  sufficient.’’ 
(Dii  Prel.)  As  far  as  our  own  planetary  sytem  is  concerned, 
it  must  be  admited  that  the  circumstances  conducive  to  the 
production  of  living  and  rational  beings,  similar  to  those 
on  earth,  are  rather  limited  ; for  the  period  at  which  such 
a development  becomes  possible  can  only  occur  on  the 
large  or  external  planets  when  the  sun  shall  have  so  far 
cooled  down  that  it  can  no  longer  heat  and  light  them  suf- 
ficiently, and  it  is  therefore  quite  possible  that  the  conditions 
without  which  no  production  of  a vigorous  process  of  life 
can  take  place,  are  fulfilled  on  none  but  the  so-called  inner 
planets.  The  greater  number  of  planets  revolve  as  inert 
worlds  round  a central  sun,  which  is  only  able  to  maintain 
life  on  some  of  them  for  a comparatively  short  time.  On 
comets  and  meteorites  it  is  obvious  that  no  life  is  conceiv- 
able. The  question  has  been  propounded  : May  not  the 
inhabitants  of  other  planets  be  possibly  endowed  with  a 
higher  or  richer  organization  of  their  senses,  and  thereby 
be  susceptible  of  impressions  which  we  are  not  sensitive 
enough  to  receive?  This  possibility,  supported  as  it  is  by 
the  fact  that  the  mental  powers  of  man  can  only  be  regard- 
ed as  the  gradually  developed  result  of  a process  of  life  that 
is  adapted  to  its  surroundings,  may  well  be  admitted  with- 
out in  any  way  affecting  the  general  results  laid  down  in 
the  foregoing. 

“ And  if,”  says  Zeise  (Das  Endlose  der  grossen  und  der 
kleinen  materiellen  Welt , Altona,  1855,)  “as  there  is  not 
the  least  reason  to  doubt,  more  highly-  organized  living 
beings  exist  in  remote  worlds,  these  would  yet,  in  their 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS. 


101 


superior  development  as  rational  beings,  undoubtedly  resem- 
ble the  earth-man  in  regard  to  intellect,  since  in  the  whole 
universe  only  one  intelligence  can  be  imagined  which  is  the 
same  everywhere  — an  intelligence  which  makes  all  physical 
laws  appear  as  intellectual  laws.” 

“ In  the  life  of  the  mind,”  says  Ph.  Spiller  ( Die  Urkraft 
des  Weltalls , 1876,)  ‘‘there  must  eventually  be  some 
features  of  absolute  unity,  despite  the  diversity  that  may 
exist  in  its  organization.  The  laws  of  thinking  are  no  doubt 
the  same  throughout  the  universe." 

That  mind  and  nature  must,  in  the  last  resort,  be  the 
same,  that  physical  and  mental  laws  must  be  identical,  is 
essentially  involved  in  what  has  been  said  in  preceding 
chapters  as  to  the  relations  between  matter,  force  and 
movement.  Could  it  be  otherwise,  considering  that  Nature’s 
laws  themselves  have  created  the  mind  and  that  the  same 
forces  are  at  work  in  it  which  rule  the  world  and  Nature? 
Hence  the  laws  of  thought  of  our  minds  must  be  in  unison 
with  the  most  recondite  principles  of  the  laws  governing  in 
Nature,  and  hence  the  laws  of  thought  are  also  the  laws  of 
the  universe.  The  laws  of  thought  themselves  must  there- 
fore be  looked  upon  as  pure  natural  laws  and  as  the  result 
of  a development  that  accrues  from  the  laws  of  nature  and 
from  natural  history.  Human  reason  or  mental  activity  is 
in  some  measure  as  the  mirror  which  reflects  the  All,  it  has 
gradually  proceeded  from  that  broken  interaction  which 
goes  on  between  the  organism  and  its  environment  during 
cosmical  and  geological  periods.  Beginning  at  the  lowest 
step  of  sensibility  or  of  capacity  for  sensation,  the  human  as 
well  as  the  animal  mind  has  raised  itself  gradually,  through 
countless  stages  of  action  and  reaction,  to  its  present  height, 
and  in  doing  so  has  acquired  those  well-known  forms 
of  thought,  which  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  are  un- 
able to  appreciate  the  principle  of  evolution  in  its  full 
strength,  appear  erroneously  as  innate  ideas  preceding  all 
experience. 

‘‘The  fulcrum  of  the  argument,”  says  Oerstedt,  ‘‘that 


102 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


the  laws  of  nature  are  laws  of  intelligence,  lies  in  the  fact 
that  irom  laws  of  nature  known  to  us  we  are  enabled  by 
thought  to  deduce  others  which  experience  brings  again  be- 
fore us,  and  that,  when  this  does  not  happen,  we  find  in 
the  regular  course  that  we  have  blundered  in  our  inferences. 
Hence  it  follows  that  the  laws  of  thought  by  which  we  draw 
inferences  apply  also  to  Nature  itself.” 

“ The  laws  of  thought  flowing  from  the  human  brain,” 
says  Ph.  Spiller  {loc.  cit.)  “ have  no  logic  other  than 
that  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  laws  of  the  Universe. 
Conscious  human  mathematical  reasoning  is  none  other  in 
essence  than  unconscious  physical  thought.  It  results 
also  herefrom  that  logically  thinking  heads,  far  away  from 
one  another,  have  discovered  this  almost  at  the  same 
time.” 

Paul  von  Lilienfeld  expresses  this  same  thought  with 
even  greater  force  in  the  following  words  : 1 1 The  necessary 
laws  of  thought  and  of  matter  are  one  and  the  same. 
Thought  is  a condensed  motion,  and  since  the  human  or- 
ganism is  but  an  involution  of  physical  forces,  thought 
must  also  be  regarded  as  merely  the  condensed  action  of 
physical  forces.” 

This  theory  agrees  of  necessity  to  the  fullest  extent  with 
those  results  of  the  empirico-philosophical  conception  of 
Nature  which  we  shall  deal  with  in  a subsequent  chapter 
on  innate  ideas  and  on  the  gradual  mode  of  evolution  of 
human  and  brute  intelligence.  Knowing  nothing  of  so- 
called  absolute  and  superhuman  ideas  or  conceptions 
implanted  into  it  by  a supreme  power,  but  deriving  all 
knowledge,  thought,  sensation  and  volition  from  the 
millionfold  repeated  impressions  of  the  surrounding  world, 
the  laws  prevailing  in  the  latter  cannot  but  be  reflected  or 
reproduced  in  some  measure  in  the  former  ; or,  as  Carus 
Sterne  expresses  it,  the  human  mind  is  nothing  but  a more 
or  less  faithful  lens  which  brings  to  a focus  the  rays  of 
knowledge  dispersed  throughout  Nature.  Although  it  may 
be  difficult  or  impossible  to  disentangle  or  lay  bare  in  each 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  NATURAL  LAWS.  IO3 

individual  instance  the  manifold  interwoven  threads  of  these 
relationships,  yet  no  doubt  appears  to  us  to  rest  on  the 
matter  as  a whole. 

“ Dieselbe  Ordnung  waltet  iiberall : 

Im  wechselvollen  Reigen  der  Gestirne 
Gebietet  das  Gesetz  nacli  Mass  und  Zahl, 

Wie  in  des  Menschen  denkendem  Gehirne.” 

(F.  Krasser.) 

(The  same  order  rules  everywhere  ; the  law  of  measure 
and  number  rules  in  the  changeful  hosts  of  the  stars  as  it 
does  in  man’s  thinking  brain.) 


'I he  Heavens. 


The  conception  of  “ heaven  ” as  a definite  spot  in  space  can  be  looked  upon  by 
science  as  nothing  but  a procreation  of  empty  heads. — Ph  Spii.ler. 

The  idea  of  an  Almighty  Power  which  acted  as  an  impulse  at  a definite  moment, 
is  so  antagonistic  to  all  our  notions  of  the  working  of  physical  forces,  that 
we  can  give  to  such  a possibility  no  right  of  citizenship  within  science. — 
A.  Bernstein. 

The  thought  of  a bodiless  force  hovering  over  the  chaos  of  the  elements  as  a 
creative  spirit  belongs  to  the  dreams  of  visionaries. — E.  Harless. 

EVERY  schoolboy  knows  to-day  that  the  heaven  is  no 
blue  vault  suspended  over  the  earth,  with  holes  in  it 
through  which  the  fiery  sphere  of  the  universe  gleams 
in  the  shape  of  sun  and  stars,  but  that,  in  looking  at  it  we 
are  gazing  into  an  incommensurable  and  almost  empty 
space  without  beginning  and  without  end,  the  vast  desert 
of  which  is  interrupted  only  by  single  stars  or  groups  of 
stars,  few  in  number  and  infinitely  far  between,  and  in 
which  e.g.  our  own  solar  system,  despite  its  gigantic  extent, 
appears  as  a mere  dot  in  the  infinitude  of  space.  Therefore, 
if  the  religious  theory  of  the  universe  teaches  us  that  after 
the  conclusion  of  our  earthly  career  we  are  destined  to  “go 
to  heaven,’’  astronomical  science  informs  us  on  the  contrary 
that  we  are  already  in  this  dreamed-of  heaven,  surrounded 
in  the  far  distance  by  countless  worlds  and  world-systems 
similar  to  our  earth  or  our  solar  system.  Out  of  more  or 
less  formless  masses  of  vapor  or  mist  — spread  originally 
over  many  billions  of  miles,  the  constituent  materials  of 
which  must  have  been  of  a rarity  far  beyond  our  concep- 
tion— individual  rotating  points  must  have  issued,  in  which 
the  atoms  drew  more  closely  together,  and  thence  these 

(104) 


THE  HEAVENS. 


I°5 


worlds  and  world-systems  must  have  evolved  by  a process 
of  condensation  increasing  step  by  step,  and  have  gradually 
rolled  themselves  together  in  compact  masses  or  organized 
systems.  These  masses  are  constantly  in  both  individual 
and  reciprocal  motion  in  space ; this  motion  is  obviously 
combined  and  complicated  in  the  most  diverse  ways,  yet 
controlled  in  all  its  phenomena  and  modifications  by  a single 
natural  law  of  which  we  have  spoken  heretofore  and  which 
applies  everywhere,  viz.,  the  law  of  gravitation  or  attraction. 
All  the  large  or  small  worlds  without  exception  and  with- 
out the  very  slightest  deviation  that  could  by  any  possibility 
be  regarded  as  being  in  contradiction  to  the  simple  me- 
chanical principles  of  their  motion,  follow  this  perhaps  most 
important  and  most  widely  diffused  of  all  natural  laws,  to 
which  every  substance  is  subject,  and  which  can  be  ob- 
served directly  in  every  individual  body  and  in  every  particle 
of  a body.  Such  a contradiction  or  such  an  exception  must 
be  regarded  as  an  absolute  impossibility,  and  the  existence 
of  a fact  in  opposition  to  that  law  would  be  a miracle  as 
great  as  any  other  physical  miracle.  In  reality  no  such 
exception  nor  deviation,  pointing  to  the  working  of  an  ex- 
tramundane  power  or  of  an  arbitrarily  ruling  or  governing 
hand,  could  ever  be  scientifically  demonstrated.  On  the 
contrary  it  has  been  shown  that  all  such  motions,  so  far  as 
they  are  not  affected  by  interruptions  that  are  beyond  com- 
putation, can  be  ascertained,  determined  and  foretold  with 
mathematical  accuracy  and  certainty.  As  far  as  the  teles- 
cope reaches  and  as  far  as  man  is  able  to  espy  the  laws 
of  the  heavens  — and  this  has  been  done  to  the  extent  of 
billions  and  trillions  of  miles  — he  has  met  everywhere  with 
the  same  law,  the  same  simple,  mechanical  principles,  the 
same  mathematical  formula,  and  the  same  phenomena  that 
are  subject  to  computation.  But  never  has  been  found  the 
slightest  trace  of  an  arbitrary  finger  ordaining  the  spheres 
of  the  heavens  and  appointing  the  courses  of  the  earths, 
the  suns,  and  the  comets.  ‘ ‘ I have  searched  through  the 
heavens,”  says  Lalande , the  great  astronomer,  “and 


106  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

nowhere  have  I found  a trace  of  God.”  And  when  the 
Emperor  Napoleon  asked  the  celebrated  astronomer  La- 
place, why  not  a word  was  said  of  God  in  his  Mecanique 
celeste,  the  latter  answered:  ‘‘Sire,  je  n’avais  pas  besoin 
de  cette  hypothese.”  The  further  astronomy  advanced  in 
the  knowledge  of  the  laws  and  phenomena  of  the  heavens, 
the  further  it  repelled  the  idea  or  hypothesis  of  a su- 
pernatural cause,  and  the  easier  it  became  to  trace 
back  the  origin,  grouping  and  motions  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  to  the  simplest  possible  phenomena  induced  by 
matter  and  by  the  laws  of  its  motion.  The  mutual  attraction 
of  the  smallest  particles  rolled  the  worlds  together,  and  the 
laws  of  attraction  with  their  primal  motion  gave  rise  to  that 
system  of  reciprocal  revolution  which  we  now  perceive  in 
them.  Many  indeed  who  have  reached  this  point,  refuse  to 
look  for  that  initial  impluse  in  matter  itself,  preferring  to 
trace  it  to  the  touch  of  some  supernatural  finger  which  is 
supposed  in  some  fashion  to  have  stirred  the  general  incho- 
ate world-materials  and  imparted  motion  to  matter.  Thus 
even  the  great  Newton  pretended  to  see  the  finger  of  God 
in  the  tangential  or  lateral  motion  of  the  stars;  and  Laplace 
himself  could  not  refrain  from  exclaiming:  ‘‘O  philoso- 
pher, show  me  the  hand  which  has  thrown  the  planets  on 
the  tangents  of  their  orbits  ! ’ ’ 

But  even  in  such  a remote  position,  personal  creative 
force  cannot  hold  its  own.  The  principle,  demonstrated 
in  a former  chapter,  that  there  is  no  matter  without  motion, 
and  that  eternal  matter  implies  eternal  motion,  is  in  itself 
sufficient  to  put  an  end  to  this  difficulty.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  throughout  space  motion  has  existed  from  all 
eternity  and  will  exist  for  evermore,  that  all  bodies  without 
exception  are  subject  to  a regular  succession  of  origin  and 
decay,  and  that  each  traverses  a cycle  of  origin,  existence 
and  death,  which  occupies  enormous  periods  of  time,  and 
eventually  melting  away  again  into  the  so-called  cosmic 
mist,  re-enacts  the  process  either  in  the  same  or  in  a sim- 
ilar fashion.  Thus  it  happens  that  an  eternal  and  eternally 


THE  HEAVENS.  IO7 

existing  change  takes  place  throughout  the  space  of  the 
universe. 

But  even  apart  from  this  general  principle,  it  is  by  no 
means  impossible  or  even  difficult  to  conceive  the  manner 
in  which  that  particular  kind  of  motion  took  place  which 
gave,  or  must  have  given,  the  primal  impulse  to  the  process 
of  globular  aggregation  referred  to.  The  very  slightest 
dissimilarity  of  size  or  of  attractive  force  or  of  the  relative 
positions  of  the  atoms  in  the  primal  state  would  have  been 
sufficient  to  induce  the  origin  of  the  first  centres  of  con- 
densation. The  necessary  contraction  of  the  incipient  ball 
of  mist  by  cooling,  or  by  irregular  radiation  into  the  cold 
space  around  it,  must  have  sufficed  to  draw  the  atoms 
together  in  different  ways  and  thereby  initiate  in  certain 
places  the  process  of  condensation  and  motion  which  would 
eventually  lead  to  the  formation  of  individual  bodies.  It 
may  be  that  there  was  a lateral  attraction  from  neighboring 
bodies  at  work,  which  produced  in  some  portions  of  the 
ball  of  mist  increased  condensation  and  agglomeration  in 
that  one  direction  and  eventually  caused  it  to  rotate  on  its 
own  axis.  Possibly  there  were  also  chemical  affinities  at 
play,  inducing  certain  atoms,  after  the  cause  of  the  original 
dispersion  had  ceased  to  act,  to  draw  near  to  one  another 
and  form  new  substances,  in  such  a manner  that  the  larger, 
overpowering  the  smaller  ones  that  surrounded  them,  at- 
tracted these  towards  themselves  and  thus  gave  rise  to 
further  chemical  processes,  favored  by  the  higher  tempera- 
ture resulting  from  the  increase  of  density.  By  the  irregu- 
lar accumulation  of  larger  or  smaller  masses  coming  from 
different  sides  a displacement  of  the  centre  of  gravity  be- 
came inevitable.  Hence  currents  set  in  within  the  various 
parts  of  the  sphere  of  gas,  and  these  eventually  resulted  in 
a rotatory  movement  which  led  to  the  formation  of  individ- 
ual spheres  moving  in  regular  orbits.  In  point  of  fact,  the 
telescope  has  revealed  to  us  the  existence  in  the  sky  of 
such  rotating  mists,  or  spheres  of  mist  of  annular  spiral 
form.  The  whole  build  of  the  so-called  spiral  mist-masses 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


io3 

goes  to  show  that  those  remarkable  bodies  are  in  a state  of 
revolution,  in  the  course  of  which  enormous  currents  of 
incandescent  matter  descend  in  spiral  lines  upon  the  central 
masses,  producing  in  doing  so,  whirling  and  circling  move- 
ments, which  eventually  lead  to  the  formation  of  spherical 
planets.  Besides,  this  rotatory  of  revolving  motion  exists 
so  generally  throughout  space  and  is  so  universally  per- 
ceptible among  all  aggregated  cosmic  masses  as  to  clearly 
point  to  the  presence  of  some  universal  cause,  that  is  to  say 
of  some  physical  necessity.  According  to  Spiller , there 
exists  in  reality  no  rectilinear  but  only  a curvilinear  motion 
in  space.  The  velocity  of  this  motion  must  obviously  in- 
crease in  proportion  to  the  increase  of  the  density  of  the 
cosmic  mass. 

The  further  development  of  this  revolving  cosmic  mass 
into  articulated  solar  and  planetary  systems  also  proceeds 
on  purely  mechanical  principles  and  in  accordance  with 
known  physical  laws.  Acceleration  of  the  velocity  of  the 
induced  motion  by  curtailment  and  contraction- — -a  lens- 
like flattening  of  the  aggregated  sphere  of  mist  with  a 
greater  condensation  at  the  centre — the  separation  of 
equatorial  zones  of  vapor  by  vibration  or  centrifugal  force, 
like  that  which  is  still  to  be  found  in  the  case  of  the  planet 
Saturn  — these  zones  finally  broken  up  and  the  separated 
portions  rolling  into  spheres  (planets,  moons,  etc.) — grad- 
ual cooling  down  of  these  separated  bodies  to  various 
degrees  — all  this  in  accordance  with  Kant  and  Laplace’s 
famous  and  now  universally  accepted  nebular  hypothesis  — 
these  are  the  simple  means  by  the  aid  of  which  Nature  has 
obtained  and  still  goes  on  obtaining  her  great  aims  of 
world -formation,  which  are  computed  to  the  extent  of 
myriads  of  years.  For  even  now  astronomers,  starting 
from  the  most  solid  foundation,  see  in  the  so-called  nebulae 
in  the  heavens  the  various  stages  of  development  of  our 
own  solar  system  or  revolving  worlds  arising  from  wide- 
spread masses  of  mist,  which  will  gradually,  by  increasing 
condensation  and  rotation,  develop  into  various  planetary 


THE  HEAVENS. 


IO9 


or  solar  systems.  “Who,”  says  Professor  Forster , ( The 
Beginning  and  End  of  the  World , p.  18),  “can  see  the 
so-called  spiral  or  whirling  mists  without  the  conviction  of 
their  inherent  motion  at  once  forcing  itself  upon  him  ? ” 

There  are  indeed  many  nebulce  in  the  sky  which  are 
merely  groups  of  stars  and  which  can  be  resolved  into  such 
by  the  observer  with  the  help  of  powerful  instruments. 
Then  again  there  are  others,  essentially  different  from  these, 
which  cannot  be  resolved  into  separate  stars  and  which 
clearly  consist  of  cosmic  or  primal  world- masses  in  different 
stages  of  development.  Some  of  these  have  nuclei,  which 
have  already  separated  themselves  from  the  whole  mass  in 
the  shape  of  more  solid  centres  ; others  have  annular  forms, 
and  so  on  ; by  comparison  of  earlier  and  later  observations 
of  the  same  nebulse  it  has  even  been  possible  to  recognize 
certain  changes  that  have  been  going  on  in  them.  A great 
number  of  these  nebulae  appear  to  have  a double  motion, 
resembling  that  of  our  sun  and  of  its  planets,  and  are  likely 
to  develop  like  these  in  the  end.  Nay,  thei'e  are  actually 
criteria  which  go  to  show  that  even  within  the  limits  of  our 
own  planetary  system  there  are  remnants  of  that  mass  of 
mist  from  which  that  system  must  originally  have  sprung. 
More  recent  searches  into  the  analysis  of  light  have  fully 
confirmed  and  proved  the  theory  of  the  primal  world-mist, 
put  forth  by  Herschel  and  Laplace,  and  have  shown  that 
there  exists  in  space  genuine  mists  endowed  with  inherent 
luminous  properties  and  being  nothing  more  than  glowing 
masses  of  gas.  The  only  force  which  lies  at  the  base  of  all 
these  formative  processes  and  movements  is  nought  but 
attraction  — attraction,  which  condenses  the  mists,  which 
forms  suns  and  planets  out  of  them,  which  regulates  their 
movements  and  finally  evolves  from  the  induced  condensa- 
tion heat  and  light,  the  sole  and  ultimate  source  of  all 
phenomena  of  life. 

All  these  observations  and  facts  give  us  the  right  to  con- 
clude, judging  from  analogy  with  that  which  has  already 
been  discovered,  that  certain  phenonema  which  take  place 


I IO 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


in  the  heavens  and  the  explanation  of  which  is  still  more  or 
less  wanting,  do  not  represent  exceptions  to  the  general 
laws  of  Nature,  and  that  the  cause  of  their  peculiar  kind  of 
motion  lies  either  in  themselves  or  in  the  ordinary  laws  of 
matter.  We  are  all  the  more  justified  in  doing  this,  if  we 
bear  in  mind  that  there  are  so  many  irregularities  and  so 
many  things  more  or  less  fortuitous,  nay,  looking  at  them 
from  the  point  of  view  of  design,  actually  aimless  or  inex- 
pedient in  the  order  of  the  universe  and  of  its  individual 
organs,  which  go  directly  against  the  theory  of  the  working 
or  interference  of  a higher  intelligence  or  creative  power, 
analogous  to  the  laws  of  the  human  mind.  If,  as  must  be 
assumed  according  to  the  teleological  idea  of  the  world,  a 
personal  creative  power,  guided  by  definite  aims,  meant  to 
create  worlds  as  dwelling-places  for  intelligent  thinking 
beings  worshipping  his  omnipotence,  why  should  there  be 
these  huge,  vacant  and  useless  tracts  of  space,  in  which  but 
here  and  there  isolated  suns  and  earths  swim  as  almost  im- 
perceptible dots  — resembling  a handful  of  globules  thrown 
into  the  vast  ocean  ? * Why  then  are  not  the  other  planets 
of  our  solar  system  (with  perhaps  the  solitary  exception  of 
Mars)  adapted  to  be  likewise  inhabited  by  men  or  by  man- 
like beings?  Would  not  the  formation  of  many  smaller 
planets  have  been  much  more  calculated  to  secure  the 
objects  of  life,  seeing  that,  as  shown  heretofore,  the  so- 
called  outer  or  larger  planets  are  in  no  way  suited  for  ever 
developing  life  ? Why  is  the  moon,  our  everlasting  com- 
panion, with  its  craters  and  burnt-out  volcanoes,  left  without 
water  and  without  atmosphere,  and  therefore  inimical  to 
all  organic  development  ? f Why  is  not  the  sun,  the  sur- 

*The  famous  astronomer  Tycho  de  Braht,  who  died  in  the  year  1608,  “ put  the 
place  of  the  fixed  stars  as  not  far  beyond  the  orbit  of  Saturn,  the  outermost  planet 
according  to  the  knowledge  of  his  time  ; for  the  idea  of  wide  starless  tracts  of 
ether  would  not  have  agreed  with  his  conception  of  a creator  pervading  all 
space." — F.  Nobbe. 

t According  to  more  recent  views  the  moon  is  really  thought  to  have  an  atmos- 
phere, but  one  of  such  rarity  that  its  density  is  only  from  i-200th  to  i-40oth  of 
that  of  the  earth,  so  that  it  must  be  quite  unfit  for  the  existence  of  animals,  plants, 
or  human  beings.  The  other  physical  conditions  of  the  moon’s  surface  are  also 


THE  HEAVENS. 


Ill 


face  of  which  is  12,500  times  greater  than  that  of  the  earth, 
inhabitable  as  it  was  once  thought  to  be  ? and  why  are  the 
fixed  stars,  scattered  through  space  in  incalculable  millions, 
in  a similar  condition  ? If  it  should  be  said  that  these  suns 
serve  to  enlighten  and  to  warm  their  inhabited  planets,  then 
must  it  not  be  forgotten  that  in  this  case  the  means  and  the 
end  stand  in  a most  startling  contrast  to  one  another  and  that 
our  own  sun,  for  instance,  the  centre  of  our  planetary  sys- 
tem, is  constantly  squandering  uselessly  huge  quantities  of 
light  and  heat  in  the  cold  realms  of  space,  while  our  little 
earth,  the  supposed  centre  of  the  universe,  receives  of  all 
this  but  the  2300-millionth  part  or  even  less,  and  the  whole 
of  the  planets  between  them  are  benefited  to  only  the  230- 
millionth  part  of  this  enormous  waste  of  force.  Nay,  what 
is  the  object,  from  a teleological  View,  of  the  change  of  day 
and  night,  which  necessarily  results  from  the  relation  of  the 
sun  and  earth  ? If  such  a change  is  necessary  for  the  life 
of  the  creatures  inhabiting  the  earth,  why  should  the  polar 
zone  have  a day  and  a night  lasting  each  six  months,  and 
why  should  the  necessary  darkness  of  the  night  be  broken 
by  the  influx  of  moonlight  ? 

In  the  well-known  inclination  of  the  axis  of  the  earth 
towards  the  plane  of  its  orbit,  known  by  the  name  of  the 
angle  of  the  ecliptic,  which  is  the  cause  of  the  change  of  the 
seasons,  many  perceive  a design  of  heaven  intended  for 
our  welfare.  But  they  do  not  consider  that  they  are  con- 

such  as  to  make  it  absolutely  impossible  for  the  moon  to  be  inhabited.  According 
to  Nasmyth  the  surface  of  the  moon,  which  is  now  known  to  us  with  perfect 
accuracy,  offers  nothing  but  a desolate  waste,  a terrible  desert  which  no  human 
imagination  can  realize,  and  in  which  life  resembling  that  of  our  terrestrial  home, 
with  perhaps  the  exception  of  certain  minute  forms,  is  quite  impossible  or  incon- 
ceivable. A fearful  heat  reigns  close  to  the  ground  during  the  day,  which  lasts 
336  hours,  and  a frightful  cold  beyond  the  ground  and  during  the  equally  long 
night.  There  are  to  be  found  but  crude  forms,  dead  materials  and  the  soundless 
play  of  mighty  forces  I Wherefore  this  great  development  of  energy  without 
any  visible  aim  of  life?  For  as  a mere  illuminant  of  our  nights  the  moon  clearly 
fulfills  its  duty  but  very  imperfectly,  for  it  changes,  and  over  and  above  this  it 
may  be  the  cause  of  terrible  earthquakes.  Besides,  the  question  why  the  moon 
should  always  turn  the  same  side  to  the  earth,  is  utterly  unanswerable  from  a 
teleological  standpoint. 


I 12 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


founding  effect:  and  cause,  and  that  our  organization  would 
most  probably  be  different  were  the  inclination  of  the 
ecliptic  different  or  non-existent.  Besides,  this  very  angle 
of  the  ecliptic,  the  object  of  such  mistaken  praise,  does  not 
even  seem  to  be  in  any  way  conducive  to  our  advantage  ; 
and  if  it  were  in  our  power  to  change  this  slope  of  the  axis 
of  the  earth  towards  the  plane  of  the  earth’s  orbit,  we 
should  most  certainly  do  it  and  thereby  bring  about  a 
greater  equality  in  the  seasons.  For  if  the  earth’s  axis 
were  perpendicular  to  its  orbit,  there  would  be  in  our  lati- 
tude, for  instance,  a perpetual  spring,  calculated  in  all 
probability  to  lengthen  human  life. 

Why  — we  must  ask  still  further — did  the  sun  show  its 
beauty  to  the  earth  day  by  day,  why  did  the  moon  shed  its 
silvery  beams  over  the  world,  why  did  the  glorious  stars 
and  constellations  shine  in  radiant  beauty  on  it  during 
those  untold  ages  of  the  past  in  which  no  creature  existed  on 
its  surface  to  turn  these  glorious  arrangements  to  account, 
to  admire  them  and  meditate  on  their  object  ? What  is  the 
meaning  of  the  irregularities  and  of  the  striking  differences 
in  the  size  and  distances  of  the  individual  members  of  our 
solar  system,  and  why  is  there  an  absence  here  of  all  order, 
symmetry  or  harmony,  beauty,  regularity,  law,  in  regard 
to  size,  density,  position,  habitability,  etc.  ? Why  have 
all  the  comparisons,  analogies,  speculations,  founded  on 
the  number  and  formation  of  the  planets,  such  as  the  great 
Kepler  earnestly  engaged  in,  proved  to  be  mere  idle  phan- 
tasies ? What  is  the  object  of  the  so-called  asteroids,  or 
smaller  planets,  with  their  orbits  crossing  each  other,  of 
which  considerably  more  than  two  hundred  are  known  at 
this  day,  although  it  is  not  very  long  since  rambling  philos- 
ophers thought  that  they  could  demonstrate  on  speculative 
grounds  that  no  further  planets  could  exist  in  the  recog- 
nized astronomical  gap  between  Mars  and  Jupiter?  What 
duties  do  the  countless  meteors  or  meteorites  discharge 
which  cross  the  earth’s  orbit  and  do  so  much  mischief  in 
their  descent  ? or  the  innumerable  comets  with  their  ever- 


THE  HEAVENS. 


1*3 


changing  paths,  which  only  seem  to  exist  for  the  purpose 
of  aiding  and  abetting  in  the  worst  kind  of  superstition, 
and  of  which,  to  use  Kepler’s  phrase,  the  heavens  are  as 
full  as  the  sea  is  of  fishes  ? or  those  thousands  of  suns  with- 
out planets,  the  so-called  twin  stars,  which  revolve  eternally 
round  each  other  or  round  a common  centre?  Finally, 
why  is  our  planetary  system  so  arranged  that,  having 
originated  in  time,  it  must  perish  in  time,  and  with  it  all 
that  is  great,  all  that  man  has  ever  accomplished  or  ever 
done  on  earth,  must  subside  again  into  the  chaos  of  eternal 
oblivion  ? * 

If — as  the  theists  make  out  — the  world  or  the  cosmos 
were  created  or  governed  by  an  eternal  reason,  or  as  they 
are  wont  to  say,  designed  by  intelligence,  how  can  all  these 
contradictory  facts  be  explained?  and  why  did  not  the 
eternal  reason  give  the  planetary  systems  an  order  from 
which  its  object  and  meaning  could  be  recognized  without 
any  doubt?  Why  did  not  the  everlasting  creative  power 
write  his  name  in  starry  letters  in  the  heavens,  and  thus  put 
an  end  to  all  those  doubts  that  torture  and  trouble  the  human 
breast,  to  all  those  endless  controversies  about  his  own  ex- 
istence, which  have  caused  so  much  pain  and  grief  to  poor 
humanity,  groping  for  ever  in  darkness?  Why  should  he 
hide  himself  from  us  and  lay  snares  for  our  reason,  which 
inveigle  us  into  endless  doubtings  and  discomfort  of  every 
sort?  How  could  God,  if  he  existed,  quietly  witness  all 
the  sad  results  of  this  uncertainty  about  his  own  existence, 
seeing  that  he  could  so  easily  put  an  end  to  them  ? 

These  thoughts,  these  questions  and  strictures  might  be 
multiplied  ad  infinitum;  but  multiplying  them  would  change 
nothing  in  the  result,  that  no  unprejudiced  investigation  of 

* According  to  the  most  modern  veiws  of  astronomers,  which  are  strongly  sup- 
ported by  the  discoveries  made  by  the  help  of  spectrum  analysis,  all  solar  and 
planetary  systems  pass  through  a life-cycle  of  origin,  existence  and  decay,  oc- 
cupying thousands  of  millions  of  years,  and  reiterating  itself  eventually  in  the 
same  or  in  a similar  manner  by  renewed  decomposition  into  cosmic  mist  (primal 
world  mist  ) Throughout  all  space  a perennial  change  is  going  on  and  has  gone 
on  from  eternity. 


U4 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


Nature,  wherever  it  may  search,  can  discover  any  trace  of 
a supernatural  influence  either  in  space  or  in  time.  The 
renowned  “harmony  of  the  universe”  rests,  as  has  been 
shown  already,  partly  on  imagination  or  ignorance,  partly 
on  the  same  causes  by  which,  as  will  be  more  fully  explained 
in  subsequent  chapters,  the  apparent  design  in  other  natural 
phenomena,  especially  in  the  organic  forms  living  on  our 
earth,  is  brought  about ; and  if,  without  prejudice  to  the 
views  stated  above,  a certain  order  and  regularity  must  be 
recognized  in  the  phenomena  of  the  sky,  such  order  is  but 
the  necessary  and  unavoidable  result  of  the  process  of  evo- 
lution in  the  heaven  itself,  which  could  never  have  existed 
as  such  without  such  order.  For  a chaos,  which  in  the  course 
of  ages  is  neither  developed  nor  decomposed,  must  ever 
remain  a chaos,  while  a movement  once  begun  must  neces- 
sarily in  the  course  of  immense  periods  of  time,  and  by  the 
gradual  excision  of  all  that  is  incapable  of  life  or  unsuitable, 
as  also  by  reciprocal  adaptation  of  individual  beings,  give 
rise  to  the  genesis  or  survival  of  such  forms  as  are  suited 
for  their  surroundings  and  therefore  capable  of  life  or  suit- 
able therefor.  When  the  unsuitable  has  perished  long  since, 
the  suitable  remains.  Therefore,  the  suitable  movement  or 
position  of  any  individual  heavenly  body  is  but  an  individ- 
ual instance  of  movement,  and  all  movements  of  such  a 
body  which  are  unsuitable  or  which  collide  with  the  move- 
ments or  positions  of  other  heavenly  bodies  must  be 
gradually  eliminated  or  cut  off,  until  those  only  remain 
which  do  not  bring  about  their  own  destruction  by  irregu- 
larity or  incompatibility  with  a definite  order;  so  that  in 
the  end  the  whole  vaunted  beauty  and  order  of  the  universe 
amount  to  nothing  but  the  mechanical  relation  of  physical 
forces.  In  a most  ingenious  work  entitled  Kampf  urn's 
Dasein  am  Himmel , ( Struggle  for  existence  in  the 
heavens')  — Berlin,  1874;  3rd  revised  edition,  Leipzig,  1882 
— Dr.  Karl  Freiherr  Dii  Prel  first  and  very  successfully 
sought  to  apply  to  the  astronomical  world  the  Darwinian 
principles  which  have  in  modern  times  become  the  standard 


THE  HEAVENS. 


US 


for  judging  the  organic  world.  According  to  him,  the 
apparent  design  in  the  arrangement  of  our  planetary  system 
is  merely  the  result  of  a very  long  process  of  evolution,  and 
is  to  be  regarded  as  the  simple  outcome  of  the  fact  that  all 
planets  which  did  not  follow  regular  orbits,  left  the  system, 
or  re-united  themselves  to  the  sun,  or  were  flung  off  into 
long-stretched  paths  along  which  they  subsequently  travel- 
ed as  comets  and  groups  of  meteorites.  It  is  probable 
that  the  sun  originally  possessed  a much  larger  number  of 
satellites,  many  of  which  were  eliminated  in  this  manner ; 
this  possibly  accounts  for  the  great  gaps  that  exist  in  the 
system.  Only  in  the  group  of  asteroids  does  this  pro- 
cess of  elimination  appear  to  be  still  incomplete,  since 
this  group,  being  a portion  or  broken-up  fragment  of  some 
planet,  shattered  to  pieces  by  some  cause  unknown  to  us, 
has  not  been  as  long  in  existence  as  the  remaining  planets. 
In  the  case  of  comets  also,  which  must  be  regarded  as  a 
direct  offspring  of  the  sun,  Dii  Prel  holds  that  this  process 
is  as  yet  far  from  being  complete.  He  regards  them  as  the 
youngest  members  of  the  system,  while  the  planets  are  the 
oldest  and  the  asteroids  lie  midway  between  the  two  classes. 
But  everything  in  this  (and  other)  classes  that  is  incapable 
of  fitting  into  the  general  system  and  into  the  order  that 
reins  in  it  to  a certain  extent,  must,  in  process  of  time,  be 
eliminated  or  crowded  out.  ‘ ‘ Thus  the  physical  struggle 
which  commenced  by  the  law  of  gravitation,  ends  with  those 
marvellous  combinations  of  mighty  stars,  at  the  sight  of 
which  we  scarcely  forbear  from  coming  to  the  conclusion 
that  their  movements  must  from  the  very  first  have  been 
regulated  by  an  all-wise  design.  And  yet  we  can  only  at- 
tribute this  orderly  result  to  the  aimless  working  of  physical 
forces,  which  here,  as  everywhere,  act  according  to  the 
principle  of  adaptation  and  must  infallibly  evolve  harmony 
in  the  end.” 

None  the  less  this  harmony  is  by  no  means  complete, 
despite  the  great  regularity  of  the  movements  in  our  solar 
system.  One  planet  keeps  constantly  pulling  at  the  other 


1 1 6 


force  and  matter. 


and  striving  with  more  or  less  success  to  influence  its 
course.  The  moon  drags  at  its  mother-planet  whose  oceans 
it  often  raises  up  to  devastating  tides  and  whose  intestines, 
if  a modern  theory  be  true,  it  stirs  up  to  destructive  com- 
motion. Comets  and  meteorites  drive  their  path  right 
across  the  system,  bestowing  no  benefit  on  it,  but  only  in- 
juring it.  The  supreme  force  of  the  sun  alone  keeps  the 
whole  system  in  tolerable  order. 

We  close  this  chapter  with  the  same  words  with  which 
Dii  Prel  concludes  the  preface  of  his  interesting  work  : 

‘ 1 Epicurus  of  old  said  : The  Gods  dwell  in  the  interspaces 
of  our  knowledge  of  the  world.” 

“Nie  hat  der  Geist  des  Menschen  mehr  geglanzt, 

Als  da  er  unbekannte  Welten  mass, 

Da  er  in  jenen  Hohen,  unbegrenzt, 

So  wie  in  einem  offnen  Buche  las. 

Den  Himmel  hat  er  zu  sich  hergezogen, 

Den  Schleier  aufgehoben  von  den  Fernen, 

Und  wenn  sein  Geist  ihm  iiberall  gelogen, 

Dort  fand  er  ew’ge  Wahrheit  in  den  Sternen.” 

J.  F.  Castelli. 

(Never  has  man’s  spirit  shone  more  brilliantly  than  in 
measuring  unknown  worlds  and  in  reading,  as  in  an  open 
book,  those  illimitable  heights.  He  has  drawn  the  heavens 
down  to  himself,  he  has  lifted  the  veil  from  the  distant,  and 
if  his  spirit  deceived  him  everywhere,  he  yet  found  eternal 
truth  in  the  stars.) 


Periods  of  the  Creation  of  the 
Earth. 


Modern  geology  has  shown  that  none  of  the  so-called  geological  formations  are 
spread  over  the  whole  earth,  but  that  all  formations  have  taken  place  simul- 
taneously at  every  period  ; it  has  also  shown  that  they  are  still  progressing  all 
over  the  world  and  will  continue  to  progress  for  ever. — F.  Mohr 
Things  happening  to-day  are  merely  the  copy  and  reflex  of  things  that  happened 
in  former  times.  — Isnard. 

The  forces  now  at  work  in  the  world  are  the  same  in  quality  and  quantity  which 
brought  about  geological  changes  in  the  most  distant  ages  — Lyell 
In  the  time-piece  of  Nature  thousands  of  years  are  but  a single  beat  of  the 
pendulum  ; they  are  but  what  a second  is  to  us.  — H.  Tutti.e. 

AFTER  the  earth  had  separated  itself  as  an  individual 
self-existent  body  from  the  rotating  primal  mist  and 
begun  its  rotatory  motion  around  the  remaining 
central  mass,  a number  of  changes  began  in  its  interior  which 
tended  to  produce  a continually  increasing  condensation  of 
its  mass  in  the  centre  and  a simultaneous  refrigeration  on 
the  outside.  Whereas  the  ancients,  in  their  imperfect  cos- 
mogony, taking  the  earth  for  the  centre  of  the  universe, 
fancied  that  in  the  course  of  the  supposed  division  of  the 
solid  from  the  liquid,  the  fire  rose  to  heaven  in  order  to 
form  the  radiance  and  glow  of  the  firmament,  it  in  reality 
receded  slowly  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  bosom  of  the 
earth,  and  now  betrays  its  presence  only  by  the  ever  in- 
creasing heat  of  the  interior  of  the  earth,  by  hot  springs, 
volcanoes,  etc.  The  outside  of  the  earth,  on  the  contrary, 
becoming  more  rigid  and  forming  a crust,  assumed  more 
and  more  the  characteristics  of  apparent  solidity  and  im- 

(117) 


1 1 8 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


mutability  which  it  has  at  this  day.  Fierce  conflicts  took 
place  between  fire  and  water,  after  the  water  had  precipita- 
ted itself  on  the  surface  of  the  earth  as  a hot  primal  ocean 
from  the  watery  mists  surrounding  the  globe,  and  had  uni- 
formly spread  over  its  surface.  Out  of  these  conflicts,  and 
by  virtue  of  influences  destructive  on  the  one  hand,  con- 
structive on  the  other,  of  forces  partly  physical,  partly 
chemical,  partly  representing  the  working  of  inferior  organ- 
isms, there  arose,  in  the  course  of  enormous  periods  of 
time,  earth-formations  and  strata  which  are  accessible  to 
our  investigations,  and  in  which  geologists  read  the  history 
of  the  earth  as  in  an  ancient  chronicle.  The  day-book  of 
Nature,  it  is  true,  is  not  so  complete  and  uniform  as  to 
require  merely  to  be  read  off ; on  the  contrary,  it  is  in  the 
highest  degree  imperfect,  full  of  gaps,  continually  inter- 
rupted, and  written  in  many  different  spots  all  over  the 
surface  of  the  earth  ; its  leaves  are  in  many  ways  damaged 
or  put  out  of  order  by  subsequent  events  ; individual  letters 
are  destroyed  or  rendered  illegible,  so  that  it  needs  no 
little  trouble  and  no  little  keenness  to  fill  up  the  gaps  to 
some  extent,  to  interpret  accurately  the  obliterated  passages 
and  to  get  at  their  true  connection. 

Indeed,  such  an  interpretation  would  probably  have  been 
impossible,  if  scattered  solid  fragments  and  remains  of  the 
earlier  world  of  living  organisms,  such  as  mussels,  teeth, 
scales,  bones,  feathers,  shells,  plants,  etc., — the  so-called 
fossils  — had  not  resisted  destruction,  and  had  not,  by 
giving  to  each  geological  formation  a definite  and  easily 
recognizable  character,  served  in  some  measure  as  guides 
or  clews  through  the  labyrinth  of  that  geological  chronicle. 
This  circumstance,  in  connection  with  erroneously  inter- 
preted geological  facts,  unfortunately  gave  rise  to  the  famous 
theory  of  geological  catastrophes  and  revolutions  which, 
for  a length  of  time,  ruled  supreme  in  science.  As  an  out- 
come of  this  theory,  it  was  imagined  that  from  time  to  time 
a complete  change  was  caused  in  the  surface  of  the  earth 
by  gigantic  revolutions  and  catastrophes,  accompanied  by 


PERIODS  OF  THE  CREATION  OF  THE  EARTH.  119 

the  destruction  and  subsequent  new  creation  of  all  living 
things  to  be  found  thereon,  and  that  this  proceeding  had 
been  repeated  some  thirty  or  fifty  times  in  the  history  of 
the  earth.  Fire  and  water,  each  after  its  fashion,  were  sup- 
posed to  have  co-operated  in  destroying  the  world  of  living 
things  at  a blow,  and  to  have  afforded  the  creator,  after  the 
elements  had  quieted  down  again,  an  opportunity  of  setting 
to  work  his  creative  omnipotence  in  establishing  a new 
order  of  things.  The  names  of  the  famous  French  scientists 
Baffon  (1707 — 1788)  and  Cuvier  (1769 — 1832)  are  most 
closely  connected  with  this  theory  of  cataclysms  ; it  was 
also  believed  in  by  the  famous  naturalist  Agassiz,  who  died 
a few  years  ago,  and  it  still  musters  numerous  adherents, 
though  rather  in  theological  than  in  specially  scientific  cir- 
cles. The  greater  number  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  like 
Heraclitus,  Plato,  etc.,  also  looked  upon  the  history  of  the 
globe  in  a similar  fashion  and  had  an  idea  of  periodical 
catastrophes  and  new  creations  of  the  world,  recurring  at 
intervals  of  a larger  or  smaller  number  of  thousands  of 
years  ; whilst  others,  whose  tendency  was  of  a more  ma- 
terialistic nature,  such  as  Anaxagoras,  Okellus,  Democritus, 
and  his  disciples  Epicurus  and  Lucretius  expressed  even 
then  an  opinion  that  the  cosmic  process  ever  followed  its 
regular  course  and  that  the  violent  changes  were  confined 
within  very  narrow  limits. 

This  theory  of  catastrophes,  as  will  be  easily  seen,  afforded 
the  theological  tendency  in  natural  science  a welcome  pre- 
text for  calling  in  the  co-operation  of  a supernatural  power, 
by  whose  impulse  or  permission  those  revolutions  were 
thought  to  have  been  brought  about,  in  order  that  the 
earth  might  be  led  through  various  stages  of  gradual  im- 
provement to  a form  suited  for  certain  objects  or  designs. 
It  was  supposed  that  this  power  had  intervened  frequently 
and  directly,  or  that  a continual  and  new  creation  had 
taken  place,  at  stated  periods,  and  that  new  and  improved 
organic  beings  and  species  had  sprung  up  after  each  suc- 
cessive destruction.  The  Bible  was  thus  borne  out  when 


120 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


it  said  that  God  had  visited  the  earth  with  a deluge  in 
order  to  destroy  the  disobedient  human  race,  wallowing 
in  iniquity,  so  that  he  might  put  a better  one  in  its  place. 
God  was  thought  with  his  own  hand  to  have  raised  moun- 
tains, dried  up  oceans,  created  living  things,  and  so  on. 

All  these  fancies  about  the  intervention  of  an  indepen- 
dent, supernatural,  and  mysterious  power  in  the  course  of 
the  earth’s  history  have  turned  out  to  be  mere  illusions  and 
dreams,  when  looked  at  by  the  light  of  sober  scientific 
thought.  With  the  same  keenness  of  vision  with  which 
astronomical  science  pierced  through  and  discovered  the 
conditions  of  the  furthest  realms  of  space,  the  eye  of  geo- 
logical science  ranged  backwards  over  a past  of  millions 
upon  millions  of  years,  the  unlifted  veil  of  which  had  hid- 
den the  history  of  our  globe  from  man’s  ken  in  a mysterious 
gloom  which  readily  lent  itself  to  superstitious  reverie ; and, 
in  so  doing,  it  discovered  the  clearest  evidence  of  the  fact 
that  this  history  owes  its  existence  throughout  to  none  but 
the  simplest  and  most  natural  processes,  which  may  in 
many  instances  be  traced  with  the  greatest  scientific  accu- 
racy. The  theory  of  the  so-called  periods  of  creation  of 
the  earth,  which  in  former  days  were  so  frequently  and  so 
readily  spoken  of,  and  which  even  at  this  day  a cosmogony 
based  on  childish  error  would  feign  identify  with  the  biblical 
days  of  creation  — was  found  to  be  altogether  inadmissible, 
and  the  whole  past  of  the  earth  appeared  as  the  present  of 
our  globe,  unrolled.  It  is  the  great  glory  of  the  eminent 
English  geologist,  Sir  Charles  Lyell , who  died  only  a few 
years  ago,  to  have  been  the  first  who  proved  convincingly 
that  the  catastrophes  or  revolutions,  on  which  had  been 
built  up  the  theory  of  the  periods  of  creation,  were  never 
universal,  but  purely  local,  in  point  of  fact  that  no  geolog- 
ical convulsions  had  taken  place  simultaneously  over  the 
whole  surface  of  the  globe,  but  that  the  past  history  of  the 
earth  is  only  a continuous  and  gradual  process  of  evolution, 
springing  from  the  same  forces,  phenomena,  and  diminutive 
changes  which  are  actively  at  work  at  the  present  time  in 


PERIODS  OF  THE  CREATION  OF  THE  EARTH.  121 


the  formation  of  the  surface  of  the  earth,  and  which  day  by 
day  keep  going  on  under  our  very  eyes.  It  is  true  that 
this  process  generally  goes  on  in  such  a slow,  gradual,  im- 
perceptible manner,  that  the  period  of  time  allotted  to  our 
observation  and  experience  is  much  too  short  for  us  to  ac- 
quaint ourselves  with  the  great  results  of  its  working.  No 
doubt  it  must  at  first  sight  have  appeared  as  though  the 
changes  of  which  we  see  such  powerful  traces  on  the  surface 
of  the  earth,  must  have  originated  in  powerful  convulsions 
of  its  interior  ; but  riper  experience  and  observation  teach 
us  the  very  opposite.  “ For  the  earth,”  says  Burmeister 
in  his  excellent  History  of  Creation , “ is  entirely  formed  by 
forces  which  we  find  active  in  their  full  strength  even  at 
this  day  : it  has  never  been  subjected  to  evolutionary  ca- 
tastrophes essentially  more  powerful  or  entirely  different 
from  those  which  affect  it  now  ; on  the  other  hand,  the 
length  of  time  in  which  the  changes  have  taken  place  is 

immeasurable The  gigantic  and  startling  nature  of 

the  terrestrial  evolution  lies  only  in  the  huge  periods  of 
time  during  which  it  has  been  proceeding,”  etc. 

In  fact,  the  main  solution  of  the  apparent  enigma  lies  in 
the  enormous  periods  of  time  through  which  the  history  of 
the  earth  extends.  As  a drop  of  water  ever  falling  on  the 
same  spot  will  in  time  perforate  a stone,  so  forces  apparent- 
ly weak  and  scarcely  perceptible  on  a small  scale  produce 
incredible  and  seemingly  miraculous  results  when  working 
through  long  periods.  Now,  as  formerly,  the  earth  is  con- 
stantly changing  under  our  very  eyes;  constantly  terrestrial 
strata  appear  and  disappear,  volcanoes  are  ignited,  earth- 
quakes rend  the  ground,  mountains  rise  or  collapse,  whole 
continents  are  levelled  up  or  slowly  recede  again  into  the 
bosom  of  the  earth,  islands  rise  and  sink,  the  sea  retreats 
from  the  terra  firma  or  overflows  other  lands,  rivers  change 
their  courses,  now  tearing  away  tracts  of  land,  now  laying 
down  fresh  soil  on  other  spots;  to  this  very  day,  the  count- 
less myriads  of  plants  and  animals  are  still  actively  engaged 
in  gradually  building  up  the  crust  of  the  earth,  while  water, 


122 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


wind,  and  storms  seek  to  pull  down  again  what  has  been 
built  up  * All  these  slow  and  natural  effects  produced  by 
natural  causes  at  different  times  and  in  different  places, 
which  effects  have  needed  so  many  millions  of  years  to 
evolve  themselves,  we  now  behold  united  into  one  grand 
collective  picture,  and  so  striking  and  powerful  is  the  im- 
pression wrought  upon  us  by  this  picture,  that  we  are 
driven,  as  it  were,  to  the  thought  of,  or  the  belief  in,  a 
ceaselessly  creating  power ; whereas  in  reality  everything 
has  occurred  in  the  most  natural  fashion,  as  the  necessary 
sequence  of  cause  and  effect.  No  doubt,  the  difference 
between  individual  geological  formations  is  very  great,  so 
great,  indeed,  that  they  cannot  directly  depend  on  each 
other,  but  must  have  been  separated  by  protracted  geo- 
logical periods.  In  taking  up  a diagram  of  the  strata  of  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  one  notices  at  the  first  glance  that 
rocks  of  such  various  structure  and  mineralogical  compo- 
sition cannot  be  the  result  of  a closely  connected  formative 
process,  but  that  long  pauses  must  have  intervened,  in  the 
course  of  which  important  geological  changes,  upheavals 
and  subsidences,  alterations  of  oceanic  currents,  differences 
of  sedimentary  deposits,  etc.,  must  have  taken  place.  During 
the  upheavals  the  waves  also  began  to  carry  on  their  process 
of  destruction,  so  that  whole  tracts  of  land  with  the  organ- 
isms embedded  in  them  were  washed  away  again,  and  the 
whole  geological  and  paleontological  record  must  necessa- 
rily have  suffered  a complete  break  in  that  particular  spot. 
To  those  who  look  only  at  the  surface  of  things  and  who 
have  no  understanding  of  the  intimate  connection  of  things, 
this  break  may  appear  as  real  and  as  a proof  of  a new 
creation  having  taken  place ; but  the  rational  and  enlight- 
ened mind  of  an  educated  man,  aided  by  scientific  training, 

*Any  one  who  wishes  to  acquaint  himself  with  the  practical  evidence  of  these 
fuCts,  can  find  it  in  the  following  works:  Burmeister,  “ Geschichte  der  Schop- 
fung;”  Rossmassler,  "Geschichte  der  Erde;’’  O.  Vogler,  "Erde  und  Ewigkeit;” 
F.  Mohr,  "Geschichte  der  Erde;’’  Lyell,  "Principles  of  Geology,”  and  "Antiquity 
of  Man;”  lastly,  in  the  author’s  works,  " Natur  und  Geist,”  and  “Die 
Darwin’sche  Theorie.” 


PERIODS  OF  THE  CREATION  OF  THE  EARTH.  1 23 

will  judge  very  differently  indeed.  It  knows  that  the  inves- 
tigation into  the  history  and  the  stages  of  development  of 
the  earth,  like  the  investigation  into  the  laws  of  the  heavens, 
is  unable  to  find  anywhere  the  traces  or  the  workings  of  a 
supernatural  power,  holding  a position  independent  of  the 
natural  connection  of  things  ; that  investigation  has,  on  the 
contrary,  proved  that  everywhere  and  in  all  periods  of  that 
history  the  same  materials,  forces  and  physical  laws  were 
active  as  those  by  which  we  are  now  surrounded.  No- 
where, nor  in  the  remotest  periods  of  the  past,  has  this 
investigation  found  a spot  which,  when  reached,  it  became 
necessary  to  put  a stop  to  scientific  research  or  to  accept 
the  notion  of  unknown  or  supernatural  forces ; everywhere 
have  been  found  the  same  laws,  the  same  matter,  the  same 
processes  accessible  to  scientific  analysis.  “ Historical  re- 
search (into  the  history  of  the  evolution  of  the  earth)  has 
led  to  the  conclusion  that  the  past  and  the  present  rest  on 
exactly  similar  bases  ; that  the  past  developed  in  a fashion 
identical  to  that  in  which  the  present  rolls  on,  and  that  the 
forces  which  are  active  on  our  earth  have  been  the  same 
from  time  immemorial.” — Burmeister.  ‘‘This  immutable 
identity  in  the  nature  of  phenomena  gives  us  a certainty 
that  fire  and  water  have  had  the  same  energies  at  all  periods 
as  they  have  now  and  will  have  henceforth  ; that  gravita- 
tion, and  hence  the  phenomena  of  weight,  electricity, 
magnetism,  and  the  volcanic  activity  of  the  interior  of  the 
earth,  have  never  been  different  from  what  they  are  now.  ’ ’ 
— -Rossmassler.  “ Nature  almost  always  works  in  dumb 
silence  ; cataclysmic  convulsions  and  violent  destruction 
are  but  exceptional.  The  catastrophes  which  authors  have 
crudely  painted  from  fancy,  are  either  exaggerations  or 
have  never  taken  place  at  all.  There  have  been  great 
changes,  and  vast  upheavals  ; but  for  the  most  part  with 
less  tumult  than  fanciful  authors  have  made  about  them, 
and  they  have  certainly  not  taken  place  by  means  of  any 
but  the  normal  and  known  forces  of  nature.” — H.  Tuttle. 

Hence  the  human  mind,  enlightened  by  scientific  training, 


124 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


no  longer  needs  that  mighty  hand  which,  working  from 
without,  as  men  were  once  obliged  to  believe,  rouses  the 
incandescent  spirits  of  the  bowels  of  the  earth  to  a sudden 
tumult,  which  pours  the  waters  of  the  deluge  over  the  globe 
and  from  time  to  time  moulds  the  whole  system  to  his  pur- 
poses as  the  sculptor  does  the  plastic  clay.  If  these  objects, 
as  theists  would  have  us  suppose,  were  really  the  gradual 
preparation  of  the  surface  of  the  globe  for  the  living 
creatures  that  are  to  exist  upon  it,  more  particularly  man- 
kind, it  is  quite  impossible  to  understand  why  divine  Om- 
nipotence, which  must  be  regarded  as  the  cause  of  all  these 
changes,  should  have  needed  such  efforts  and  such  round- 
about ways  to  attain  its  end,  and  why  it  should  not,  or 
could  not,  have  done  at  once  and  without  hesitation  what 
appeared  to  be  good  or  expedient  for  the  realization  of 
these  designs.  It  requires  a stupendous  amount  of  imag- 
ination for  any  one  to  deem  it  possible  that  the  divine 
Omnipotence  or  supreme  Intelligence  can  have  found  it 
necessary  to  use  such  vast  periods  of  time  and  work  such 
fearful  catastrophes,  involving  in  each  instance  the  exter- 
mination of  all  living  creatures  in  existence,  to  finally  carry 
the  earth  and  its  inhabitants,  through  a cycle  of  transitions 
and  improvements,  to  its  last  and  highest  goal,  which  is  no 
other  than  that  of  forming  a suitable  dwelling-place  for  the 
most  highly  organized  of  animals,  man.  Can  a power 
which  we  look  upon  as  unlimited  and  absolutely  perfect, 
knowing  everything  and  foreseeing  everything,  be  subject 
to  such  narrow  limitations  and  require,  as  it  were,  such 
protracted  training  and  rehearsals,  before  it  can  attain  its 
objebt  or  accomplish  its  will  ? And  what  reason  could  such 
a power  allege  for  the  continually  recurring  destruction  of 
a whole  creation  and  world  of  living  things,  if  not  the  need 
of  constant  self-improvement,  which  is  in  diametrical  oppo- 
sition to  its  omnipotence,  perfection  and  omniscience? 
This  is  so  clear,  so  obvious  even  to  the  intelligence  of  a 
child,  that  a savage  belonging  to  the  Bechuanas,  (who 
inhabit  the  interior  of  South  Africa,)  when  Moffat,  the  mis- 


PERIODS  OF  THE  CREATION  OF  THE  EARTH.  1 25 

sionary,  was  trying  to  make  him  understand  the  Christian 
idea  of  creation,  replied  with  a sneer  : “If  you  really  think 
that  only  one  being  created  all  men,  you  must  admit  that 
this  being  gradually  improved  as  it  went  on  creating.  At 
first  it  tried  its  hand  at  the  Bushman,  then  at  the  Hottentot, 
then  at  the  Bechuana,  till  in  the  end  it  succeeded  in  making 
the  white  man.” 

Hence  there  is  no  other  explanation  of  the  events  con- 
nected with  the  story  of  the  creation  of  the  earth  than  that 
which  lies  in  the  natural  facts  themselves.  Only  the 
inevitable  and  endless  difficulties  which  Nature  had  to  over- 
come in  the  gradual  formation  of  the  crust  of  the  earth  and 
of  its  organic  population,  which  difficulties  could  only  be 
mastered  in  vast  periods  of  time,  can  offer  us  a satisfactory 
solution  of  the  problems  with  which  the  genesis  of  the 
organic  as  well  as  the  inorganic  worlds  taxes  our  perspicacity. 

The  actual  length  of  the  periods  needed  for  the  earth  to 
attain  its  present  condition  can  be  fairly  well  estimated  in 
consulting  the  computations  geologists  have  made  respect- 
ing single  phases  thereof,  or  respecting  the  length  of  time 
necessary  for  forming  individual  strata.  Thus,  for  instance, 
according  to  Professor  Bischoff's  calculation,  the  formation 
of  the  carboniferous  strata  required  a period  of  more  than 
a million,  and  according  to  Chevandier  from  600,000  to 

700.000  years.  This  figure,  however,  applies  only  to  the 
formation  of  coal  itself,  so  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  add 
the  time  required  for  the  formation  of  the  nearly  10,000 
feet  of  “grit”  (sandstone,  conglomerate  and  shale.)  Pro- 
fessor Philipps  ( Life  on  the  earth , i860)  computes  that  the 
oval-beds  of  South  Wales,  including  the  grit,  took  about 

500.000  years  to  form.  The  time  required  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  strata  of  the  tertiary  period,  ranging  from  3000 
and  5000  feet  in  thickness,  must  have  been  at  least  350,000 
years,  while,  according  to  a calculation  made  by  A.  von 
Humboldt,  the  guano  deposits,  some  of  them  nearly  100 
feet  thick,  consisting  of  the  excreta  of  sea  birds,  must  have 
taken  nearly  three  times  as  long  to  form.  The  calculation 


126 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


of  the  English  scientist  Croll , quoted  by  Grove,  make  it 
certain  that  since  the  last  glacial  period  (falling  at  the  end 
of  the  tertiary  or  at  the  beginning  of  the  post-tertiary 
period)  no  less  than  100,000  years  must  have  elapsed — “a 
space  of  time  apparently  not  very  long,  if  measured  by 
geological  eras,  but  probably  very  much  longer.”  The 
same  author  estimates  the  duration  of  the  so-called  Eocene 
or  Miocene,  the  first  two  subdivisions  of  the  great  tertiary 
period,  at  from  one  million  to  several  millions  of  years  prior 
to  the  year  1800  of  our  era  ! It  is  obvious  that  we  encounter 
much  higher  numbers,  when  we  come  to  consider  the  periods 
it  must  have  taken  to  form  the  entire  stratification  of  the 
earth’s  surface,  such  as  we  know  it ; these  periods  must 
count  by  many  millions  of  years.  Lyell  considered  that 
they  represent  a total  of  560  million  years.  This  figure  may 
be  and  probably  is  excessive,  and  we  shall  be  nearer  the 
mark  if  we  assume  a period  of  a hundred  million  years  to 
have  elapsed  from  the  time  when  the  first  living  forms 
appeared  on  the  earth  and  the  oldest  stratified  rocks  were 
deposited,  down  to  the  present  day.  According  to  Helmholtz 
this  figure,  or  even  a smaller  one,  is  near  enough  for  the 
entire  age  of  the  world  as  an  individual  planet,  while  on 
the  other  hand  some  scientists,  such  as  Falb , Klein , etc., 
bring  the  number  up  to  2000  million  years.  As  regards 
the  age  of  the  solar  heat,  it  appears  from  astronomical 
researches  that  our  earth  cannot  have  existed  as  an  inde- 
pendent planet  for  more  than  a hundred  million  years, 
while  on  the  other  hand  Prof.  Bischoff , judging  by  experi- 
ments with  a molten  and  slowly  cooled  disc  of  basalt,  has 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  originally  incandescent 
mass  of  the  earth  must  have  required  at  least  350  million 
years  to  cool  from  a temperature  of  3600°  down  to  400°. 
Blayidet  and  Vinot , two  French  scientists,  have  obtained 
yet  higher  figures,  grounding  their  calculations  on  the  physi- 
cal theory  of  light.  They  estimate  the  age  of  the  earth  at 
the  enormous  number  of  about  6000  million  years.  If  we 
take  our  stand  on  this  number  as  a basis,  we  find  that  the 


PERIODS  OF  THE  CREATION  OF  THE  EARTH.  1 27 

age  of  Neptune,  the  oldest  planet  of  our  solar  system,  would 
come  up  to  42,000  million  years  ! What  endless  periods  of 
time  must  have  elapsed  since  the  original  mist  of  our  solar 
system  had  become  sufficiently  condensed  for  Neptune  to 
separate  itself  from  its  equator  in  the  form  of  a ring  of  vapor! 

Now,  whether  one  or  another  of  these  calculations  be  the 
more  accurate,  they  show  in  any  case  what  endless  periods 
of  time  our  dwelling-place  the  earth  required,  in  order  that, 
after  passing  through  innumerable  and  scarcely  perceptible 
transitions,  it  should  at  length  become  what  it  is  now  ; and 
this  is  to  be  accounted  for  only  by  the  theory  of  a gradual 
and  very  slow  development,  and  not  by  that  of  the  personal 
intervention  of  an  omnipotent  entity.  The  numbers  quoted 
above  lead  us  to  another  inference,  which  is  this : In  con- 
nection with  the  immeasurable  distances  which  the  astrono- 
mers have  discovered  in  the  universe  and  from  which  our 
powers  of  imagination  derive  problems  they  are  unable  to 
cope  with,  the  immensity  of  the  periods  alluded  to  brings 
home  to  us  the  necessity  of  recognizing  the  illimitability 
of  time  and  space,  that  is  to  say,  eternity  and  infinity. 

Should  the  conceptions  of  religion,  which  represent  God 
as  eternal  and  infinite,  be  preferable  when  carried  to  their 
logical  ends,  to  the  theories  of  science?  Does  the  rabid 
fanaticism  of  priests,  which  invented  the  eternity  of  hell-fire, 
surpass  scientific  research  in  boldness  of  thought?  “What- 
ever may  be  said  of  the  end  of  the  world,  it  is  all  as  vague 
as  the  legend  of  the  beginning,  which  the  infantile  mind  of 
nations  invented.  The  earth  and  the  universe  are  eternal, 
since  eternity  is  an  essential  property  of  matter.  But  matter 
is  not  unchangeable,  and  because  it  appears  in  varied  forms 
man’s  limited  intellect,  while  yet  unillumined  by  scientific 
research,  holds  it  to  be  finite  and  destructible.” — Burmeister. 

“Aeonen  komraen  und  Aeonen  gehn, 

Doch  unbeachtet  rollen  sie  voriiber; 

Denn  was  sind  selbst  Aeonen,  wenn  gesehn, 

Der  unbegriff’nen  Ewigkeit  geniiber?” 

Helionde. 


128 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


(Ages  come  and  ages  go,  rolling  past  unnoticed ; for 
what  are  even  ages  in  comparison  to  unconceived  eter- 
nity ?) 

That  which  modern  science,  armed  with  the  most  mag- 
nificent appliances,  teaches  as  an  almost  irrefragable  fact, 
man  had  learned  some  thousands  of  years  ago  by  logical 
thought,  unsophisticated  by  the  religious  and  philosophical 
prejudices  of  our  enlightened  age,  and  it  seems  inconceivable 
that  such  a simple  and  necessary  thought  as  that  of  the 
eternity  of  the  universe , could  ever  have  faded  away  from  the 
human  mind  “ Almost  all  the  ancient  philosophers  are 
agreed  in  regarding  the  universe  as  eternal.  Ocellus 
Lukanus  says  expressly,  in  speaking  of  the  universe,  that 
it  has  always  been  and  evei  will  be.  All  unprejudiced  persons 
will  feel  the  force  of  the  axiom  that  out  of  nothing  nothing 
comes.  Creation,  in  the  acceptation  in  which  the  word  is 
used  by  the  moderns,  is  a theological  subtlety.”  (Systeme 
de  la  nature , premiere  partie,  Note  7.)  “ None  of  the  gods 
has  formed  the  world,  nor  has  any  man ; it  has  always 
been.”  (. Empedocles , 450  B.  C.) 


Original  Generation. 


It  is  certain  that  the  appearance  of  animal  bodies  on  the  earth  is  the  expression 
of  such  forces,  and  a function  of  these,  resulting  with  mathematical  certainty 
from  the  existing  conditions.—  Burmeister. 

One  thing  may  be  unhesitatingly  proclaimed  by  modern  science,  viz.,  that  organ- 
ized things  are  no  more  the  results  of  separate  creations  than  the  so-called 
unorganized  ones ; that  they  are  nothing  more  than  special  forms  in  which 
universal  matter  appears,  and  from  which,  like  all  the  other  individualized 
bodies,  they  have  gradually  evolved. — V.  Graber. 

It  appears  to  me  that  every  rational  physiologist,  provided  he  admits  such  a 
thing  as  the  genesis  of  life,  is  compelled  to  trace  it  to  a peculiar  aggregation 
of  chemical  and  physical  forces.— Virchow. 

It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  in  the  early  history  of  our  earth  organisms  must  have 
been  produced  abiogenetically  ; the  origin  of  living  things  must  necessarily 
have  sprung  from  inorganic  matter. — W.  Wundt. 

THERE  was  a time  when  the  earth  as  a fiery  ball  was 
not  only  incapable  of  producing  living  things,  but 
actually  hostile  to  the  existence  of  any  vegetable  or 
animal  organisms  in  close  proximity  to  its  surface.  Not 
until  after  it  had  gradually  cooled  down  and  become  solidi- 
fied, and  after  the  surrounding  watery  vapors  had  been 
precipitated  on  it,  did  the  crust  of  the  earth  assume  a form 
and  condition  which  in  its  further  development  prepared 
the  possibility  of  the  origin  and  existence  of  manifold 
organized  forms.  With  the  formation  of  water,  and  as 
soon  as  the  temperature  permitted,  organic  life  also  evolved. 
At  first  it  appeared  but  in  the  lowest  and  most  imperfect 
forms,  but  in  the  course  of  long  periods  and  in  keeping 
with  the  development  of  the  earth  itself,  it  unrolled  itself 
gradually  into  the  whole  wealth  of  forms,  shapes  and  indi- 
viduals which  now  inhabit  the  surface  of  the  globe,  and 
which  inhabited  it  throughout  the  almost  endless  duration 

(129) 


130 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


of  pre-historic  ages.  This  we  infer  with  absolute  certainty 
from  the  fact  already  mentioned  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
that  every  stratum  accessible  to  our  investigation  contains 
within  itself  the  clear  and  partially  well-preserved  remnants, 
traces  and  relics  of  the  vegetable  and  animal  organisms 
which  existed  at  the  period  of  its  deposition.  For  those 
ages  of  the  deepest  scientific  ignorance  are  long  gone  by 
and  will  never  return,  in  which  these  remains  were  looked 
upon  as  mere  Lusus  natures , i.  e.  when  it  was  thought  that 
Nature  had  amused  herself  in  representing  the  forms  and 
features  of  living  animals  in  stone,  or  when  they  were 
thought  to  be  ruins  left  by  the  Mosaic  deluge.  The  times 
are  also  gone  by  in  which  it  was  held  almost  universally 
that  all  the  various  kinds  of  lower  animals  or  plants,  down 
to  the  Infusoria,  had  arisen  without  parents  from  the  mere 
interaction  of  the  elements  or  by  what  was  called  spontane- 
ous generation.*  The  more  progress  science  achieved  by 
the  aid  of  the  microscope,  the  narrower  became  the  bounds 
within  which  the  belief  in  spontaneous  generation,  once  so 
widely  spread,  receded  ; until  at  last  a halt  was  made  at 
the  simplest  form-element,  from  which  all  aggregated 
organic  beings  originate  without  exception,  viz.  the  cell. 
The  English  physician  Harvey , the  famous  discoverer  of 
the  circulation  of  the  blood  (1619,)  laid  down  this  important 
principle  : Omne  vivum  ex  ovo  (all  that  lives  is  from  an 
egg,)  and  this  principle  was  subsequently  expanded  into: 
Omne  vivum  ex  vivo  (all  that  lives  is  from  the  living  ;)  it 
being  understood  that  the  propagation  not  only  takes  place 
through  the  germ  previously  procreated  by  similar  parents, 
but  also  more  directly  from  existing  parental  bodies,  by  the 
processes  of  fission,  buds,  shoots,  free  cell  formation,  etc. 

’Aristotle  thought  that  eels  were  generated  in  inud  ; Ovid  assigned  the  same 
origin  to  frogs,  and  Pliny  in  his  Natural  History  made  all  insects  spring  from  the 
dust  of  caves.  Even  as  late  as  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  thought  possible  to  pro- 
duce snakes  and  mice  in  the  laboratory  ; fishes,  frogs,  snakes  and  rats  were  be- 
lieved to  be  generated  spontaneously,  and  it  was  seriously  contended  that  the 
black  or  mourning-duck  originated  in  the  rotten  wood  of  old  ships  or  from  a 
mussel  (Lefias  anatxfera.)  Even  at  this  day,  popular  superstition  still  clings  to 
the  idea  of  a spontaneous  generation  of  all  kinds  of  vermin,  (fleas,  bugs,  etc.) 


ORIGINAL  GENERATION. 


I3I 

This  phrase  means  therefore  that  life,  or  anything  living, 
can  never  originate  spontaneously,  nor  from  the  mere  ag- 
gregation of  its  elements,  but  only  as  the  continuation  of  an 
already  existent  identical  or  similar  life.  In  modern  times, 
as  the  cell  became  recognized  as  the  ultimate  organized 
form-element,  or  as  the  organic  unity,  the  theory  of  it  was 
formulated  more  accurately  by  Virchow , in  the  words : 
Omnis  cellula  ab  cellula ; that  is  to  say,  there  is  no  organ- 
ized cell  which  has  not  originated  from  a previously  existent 
cell  of  the  same  or  of  similar  kind.  But  as  it  was  found  in 
the  further  course  of  these  researches  that  the  cell  was  a 
somewhat  variable  form,  that  it  was  not  always  the  same, 
but  sometimes  showed  one  kind  of  ingredients,  sometimes 
another,  a yet  more  exact  distinction  was  drawn,  and  by 
directing  attention  to  that  part  of  the  cell  which  seemed  the 
most  constant,  the  so-called  nucleus,  the  phrase  was  again 
changed  to  : Omnis  nucleus  e nucleo,  or  each  cell-nucleus 
originates  from  another  nucleus.  But  whatever  formula  was 
given  to  the  theory- — or  may  be  given  to  it  in  the  future — 
the  thought  or  principle  lying  at  the  root  of  it  is  that  organ- 
ized forms  cannot  originate  spontaneously,  and  that  one  or 
more  organized  individuals  or  units  must  have  been  present 
in  order  that  a new  one  should  originate.  The  stories  of 
the  Old  Testament  expressed  this  truth,  already  known  in 
its  broad  outlines,  in  an  allegorical  form,  by  making  two  of 
every  kind  of  animal  enter  the  ark  to  be  saved  from  the 
universal  deluge. 

For  those  who  are  not  contented  with  biblical  stories, 
several  questions  must  arise  in  the  face  of  such  facts,  viz., 
where  and  how  did  the  origin  take  place  ? What  was  the 
primal  generation  of  organized  things  ? If  all  organized 
beings  have  proceeded  from  previously  existent  organi- 
zations, from  parent  forms,  how  did  the  first  parents  arise? 
Did  these  arise  spontaneously,  merely  by  the  fortuitous  or 
necessary  concourse  of  the  elements  under  certain  condi- 
tions, or  were  they  called  into  existence  by  the  voice  of  an 
external  power,  by  a supernatural  creative  act?  And  if  the 


132 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


first  be  the  case,  why  does  the  same  thing  happen  no 
more  at  this  day  ? 

This  weighty  question  has  long  occupied  philosophers 
and  scientists,  and  has  given  scope  for  the  most  varied 
and  most  extensive  controversies.  Before  we  enter  upon  a 
closer  investigation  of  this  question,  we  must  first  remark 
in  regard  to  the  axiom  quoted  heretofore  : Omne  vivum  ex 
vivo,  (All  that  lives  is  from  the  living),  that  whilst  it  is  true  so 
far  as  the  vast  majority  of  all  organisms  is  concerned,  it 
cannot  under  present  conditions  be  accepted  as  holding 
good  throughout.  In  spite  of  numerous  and  very  carefully 
made  experiments,  in  spite  of  the  severest  efforts  made  and 
discussions  carried  on  among  scientific  men,  the  disputed 
question  of  generatio  <zquivoca  ( generatio  spontanea , or 
primaria , or  heterogenea,  or  incequalis ;)  known  also  as 
archibiosis,  autogony,  or  abiogenesis,  that  is  spontaneous 
generation,  or  heterogenesis  as  it  is  called  in  France,  has 
not  not  yet  entered  upon  such  a stage  that  it  can  be  re-1 
gardecl  as  definitely  decided.  Generatio  czquivoca  signifies 
the  generation  of  organized  beings  without  the  pre-existence 
of  similar  parents  or  parental  germs,  merely  by  the  neces- 
sary or  accidental  aggregation  of  unorganized  elements 
and  physical  forces,  or  from  organized  but  dissimilar  pa- 
rents by  the  decomposition  of  their  constituents.  These 
two  forms  of  generation  have  lately  been  distinguished, 
according  to  the  nomenclature  proposed  by  Professor 
Haeckel , of  Jena,  as  autogony  and  plasmogony.  By  autog- 
ony is  meant  the  coming  into  existence  of  the  simplest 
organized  individual  in  an  inorganic  fluid  containing  am- 
monia, carbonic  acid,  etc.;  by  plasmogony  the  coming  into 
existence  of  such  a being  in  an  organic  fluid,  containing 
the  constituent  materials  in  the  form  of  complex  and  free 
carbon-compounds.  The  numerous  experiments  on  spon- 
taneous generation  made  up  to  the  present  time  have  been 
almost  entirely  of  the  latter  kind,  that  is  to  say,  on 
plasmogony. 

Although,  as  we  have  said  before,  the  most  recent  re- 


ORIGINAL  GENERATION. 


133 


searches  have  gone  to  show  that  this  kind  of  generation, 
despite  the  wide  range  that  used  to  be  given  to  it,  has  no 
scientific  basis  to  rest  on,  it  does  not  seem  altogether  out 
of  the  question  that  it  may  hold  good  for  the  smallest  and 
simplest  organism,  the  so-called  microphyta  and  microzoa. 
Such  well-known  scientific  investigators  as  Pouchet,  Joly, 
Pennetier,  Musset,  and  Onimus  in  France  ; Child  and 
Bastian  in  England  ; Mantegazza  in  Italy  ; Wyman  in 
America  ; Schaafhausen  in  Germany,  and  many  others, 
have  declared  themselves  in  favor  of  this  hypothesis,  and 
rejected,  in  a certain  measure,  at  any  rate,  the  theory  of 
panspermism,  or  of  the  universal  presence  of  organized 
germs  in  the  atmospheric  air,  as  put  forth  by  those  who, 
like  the  French  scientist  Pasteur , are  opposed  to  hetero- 
genesis. They  regard  the  building-up  of  formed  organized 
bodies  out  of  unformed  organic  substance  as  no  more 
miraculous  or  striking  than  the  formation  of  crystals  from 
the  so  called  mother-lye,  that  is  to  say,  from  a fluid  con- 
taining their  constituent  elements.  Of  course  this  relates 
only  to  the  lowest  and  simplest  beginnings  of  life  in  the 
form  of  the  so-called  monads,  while  the  forms  that  are 
somewhat  more  highly  organized  develop  from  these  stage 
by  stage  ; just  as  in  the  course  of  geological  periods  the 
plant  and  animal  life  has  developed  or  evolved  step  by  step. 
“There  is,”  says  Pennetier,  “ a greater  distance  between 
a colpoda  or  a ciliated  infusorium  of  the  higher  sort  and  a 
bacterium,  than  between  an  elephant  and  the  lowest  mam- 
mal.” Very  diverse  forms  may  also  be  produced  in 
infusions  by  changing  the  materials  and  the  surrounding 
conditions  ; and  by  driving  the  same  air  into  different  so- 
lutions, the  most  varied  fauna  and  flora  can  be  evolved. 
Spontaneous  generation  is  the  original  condition  of  life,  while 
the  transformation  of  species  represents  its  continuance. 

It  stands  to  reason  that  even  supposing  everything  to 
be  true  which  is  advanced  by  the  advocates  of  spontaneous 
generation  in  the  form  of  plasmogony,  it  does  not  follow 
by  any  means  that  there  exists  that  organic  material  which 


134 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


forms  the  mother,  or  necessary  precedent,  of  all  the  organic 
forms  proceeding  therefrom.  This,  in  connection  with  the 
fact  that  most  scientists  have  either  rejected  or  doubted  the 
theory  of  spontaneous  generation  in  the  alleged  manner, 
and  without  the  presence  of  a precedent  germ,  has  afforded 
to  the  theological  tendency  in  science  a welcome  pretext 
for  appealing  to  the  intervention  and  activity  of  a higher 
Power  standing  outside  nature,  which,  it  is  contended, 
must,  of  its  own  free  will  and  authority,  have  created  those 
earliest  and  first  beginnings  of  organized  existence  at  a 
definite  period  of  the  earth’s  formation  and  must  have 
implanted  in  them  the  capacity  for  their  vast  subsequent 
development.  In  point  of  fact,  the  supporters  of  the  hy- 
pothesis of  creation,  as  F.  A.  Lange  cogently  remarks  in 
his  History  of  Materialism,  love  to  shelter  themselves  in 
those  dark  corners  which  science  has  not  yet  illumined  with 
its  rays,  and  there  to  hang  up  their  cobwebs  to  catch  sound 
reason  in.  Nay,  not  even  the  most  distinguished  scientists 
and  thinkers,  such  as  a Cotta  or  a Secchi , have  been  able 
to  keep  their  minds  free  from  the  influence  of  these  ideas 
and  from  the  bewildering  pressure  of  this  problem,  so  much 
so  that,  with  respect  to  the  genesis  of  organic  beings, 
the  former  cannot  help  himself  but  must  needs  call  in  the 
‘ ‘ unfathomable  power  of  a creator,  ’ ’ and  the  latter  feels 
constrained  to  appeal  to  “the  conscious  activity  of  an 
eternal  architect.” 

Without  troubling  too  much  about  a natural  explanation 
of  organic  origin  and  growth,  it  may  be  replied  to  these 
believers  that  the  germs  or  first  beginnings  of  all  living 
things  existed  from  all  eternity,  awaiting  only  the  concourse 
of  definite  external  circumstances  — either  in  that  formless 
vapor  from  which  the  earth  was  gradually  condensed,  or 
else  in  space,  from  which  they  descended  on  the  crust  of 
the  earth  after  it  had  formed  and  cooled  down,  and  that 
they  only  became  capable  of  further  development  wherever 
the  necessary  conditions  were  favorable  to  it.  However 
startling  such  a theory  may  appear  at  the  first  blush,  it 


ORIGINAL  GENERATION.  135 

must  certainly  be  admitted  that  there  is  more  intrinsic 
probability  in  it  than  in  the  hypothesis  of  creation,  which 
rests  on  no  scientific  foundation  whatever.  Moreover,  this 
bold  theory,  since  it  was  first  propounded  by  the  author  of 
this  work  in  the  year  1855,  (see  the  first  edition  of  Kraft 
und  Stoff,  pp.  74-75,)  has  been  corroborated  by  such  a num- 
ber of  important  facts,  that  the  conception  of  the  cosmical 
nature  and  the  cosmical  origin  of  life  and  of  organized  matter 
has  by  this  time  obtained  a recognized  standing  among 
the  current  scientific  hypotheses  on  the  beginning  of  life, 
and  this  has  been  acknowledged  by  many  scientists  of  mark. 
At  any  rate,  there  is  no  reason  for  rejecting  as  impossible 
the  idea  that  organized  matter  or  even  complete  organisms 
existed  in  the  earliest  ages  in  the  higher  regions  of  the 
terrestrial  atmosphere,  considering  that  great  numbers  of 
microscopic  organisms  have  been  found  in  the  finely 
divided  watery  particles  of  the  highest  clouds  of  vapor  that 
can  be  got  at,  and  that  Angus  Smith  has  shown  by  means 
of  permanganate  of  potassium  that  atmospheric  air,  how- 
ever pure,  always  contains  a very  small  quantity  of  organ- 
ized matter.  Ehrenberg  gives  out  as  his  deliberate  opinion 
that  organized  beings  actually  exist  in  space,  from  whence 
they  occasionally  come  down  on  our  globe.  Indeed,  it 
happens  frequently  enough  that  the  earth  passes  through 
meteoric  clouds,  tails  of  comets  and  similar  bodies,  and 
might,  in  its  progress,  gather  up  millions  of  organized 
beings  or  of  their  germs.  According  to  Quinet , {Die 
Schopfung , Leipzig,  1871,  pp.  276,  277.)  life  is  of  cosmical 
origin  and  cosmical  nature  and  is  as  old  and  as  wide- 
spread as  matter  itself.  The  earth,  he  thinks,  attracted  and 
still  attracts  the  germs  of  future  life  to  itself  from  the  cosmic 
mass.  Meibauer  (in  the  second  edition  of  his  Sonnen- 
System , Berlin,  1872)  has  collected  together  all  the  facts 
which  go  to  show  ‘ ! that  organized  germs  (of  cosmical 
origin)  are  carried  to  us  on  the  earth  by  the  air  spread 
throughout  the  solar  system.”  The  famous  traveller  and 
naturalist  Moriz  Wagner  also  accepts  this  theory  in  several 


136 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


excellent  articles  written  by  him  in  the  Allgemeine  Zeilutig, 
and  considers  that  life  is  as  old  as  matter  itself,  or  is  im- 
ported into  it  from  universal  space.  “ The  atmospheres  of 
the  celestial  bodies,”  says  Wagner,  “like  those  of  the 
revolving  cosmical  vapor-masses,  must  henceforth  be  re- 
garded as  permanent  conservatories  for  the  living  forms 
and  as  the  eternal  green-houses  of  organized  germs.’’ 
Prof.  Semper  ( Der  Hdckelismus  in  der  Zoologie,  1876) 
speaks  of  the  hypothesis  according  to  which  “the  life  on  our 
globe  is  derived  from  organic  germs  belonging  to  other 
worlds,  which  fell  upon  it  before  the  existence  of  any  earthly 
life  in  one  of  the  earliest  geological  periods.’’  The  English 
scientist  Sir  W.  Thompson,  and  the  famous  German  physi- 
ologist Helmholtz , have  declared  in  favor  of  this  hypothesis. 
There  is  but  one  thing  that  militates  against  it,  and  that  is 
the  extraordinarily  low  temperature  (- 238°  to- 256°  F.) 
of  the  cosmical  space.  This  difficulty,  however,  does  not 
make  any  difference  if  we  assume,  as  some  scientists  do, 
that  the  meteoric  stones  and  meteorites  which  fall  on  the 
earth  actually  bring  with  them  the  cosmical  life  that  exists 
beyond  our  earth.  Chemists  have  in  fact  been  fortunate 
enough  to  demonstrate  the  presence  of  organized  sub- 
stances, generally  in  a carbonized  condition,  in  a great 
number  of  meteorites  ; * and  in  connection  with  this  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  although  meteorites  may  be  incan- 
descent on  the  surface  in  consequence  of  friction,  it  is  quite 
possible  that  in  their  interior  they  may  harbor  organized 
substances  without  these  being  injured.  This  circumstance 
further  proves  the  presence  of  organized  substances  in  the 
spaces  traversed  by  the  meteorites  ; and  since  it  has  been 
suggested  that  the  whole  earth  may  have  been  formed  by 
meteorites  falling  in  a heap  together  or  by  particles  attracted 
from  space,  there  would  hence  be  nothing  strange  in  the 
idea  that  organized  substances  existed  on  earth  from  the 

* Further  details  may  be  found  in  F.  Mohr’s  Geschichte  der  Erde , 2.ed  1875 
and  Uber  Natur  und  Entstehungs- Art  der  Meteoriten , in  Liebig’s  Annalen  der 
Chemie , vol.  179;  also  in  Klein’s  Kosmologische  Brief (1877)  PP*  I43”I45* 


ORIGINAL  GENERATION. 


137 


very  first.  Nay  assuming  the  meteorites,  which  fall  every 
year  in  countless  numbers  on  our  earth,  to  be,  as  many 
learned  men  hold,  broken  fragments  of  other  worlds,  it  is 
self-evident  that  organized  germs  or  substances  must  nec- 
essarily be  conveyed  by  them  to  the  earth.  Dr.  Otto  Hahn 
lately  made  out  that  he  had  discovered  actual  traces  of 
plant  and  animal  remains  in  meteoric  stones,  and  various 
investigators,  such  as  Dr.  Weinland,  Professor  Karsten  and 
others,  have  pronounced  his  discovery  to  be  accurate.  If 
this  be  so,  we  have  before  our  eyes  the  actual  remains  of 
living  creatures  from  another,  possibly  broken-up,  celestial 
body.  The  commonest  kind  of  meteoric  stones  consists  of 
a mixture  of  iron  and  various  rocks,  and  contains  a number 
of  small  globular  bodies,  which  have  obtained  for  these 
stones  the  name  of  chondrites.  These  chondrites  are  some- 
times quite  black  and  contain  amorphous  carbon  and  bitu- 
minous substances,  probably  products  of  the  decomposition 
of  organic  compounds.  According  to  Dr.  Hahn,  they  are 
nothing  more  than  a mass  of  tissue  of  animals  or  plant- 
animals  of  the  lowest  kind,  such  as  sponges,  crinoids, 
corals,  etc.  According  to  Dr.  Weiland , ( Ausland , 1881, 
p.  302,)  they  are  remains  of  corals  belonging  to  the  family 
of  the  favositina,  which  on  earth  are  found  only  as  fossils 
in  the  very  oldest  strata  ; in  the  chondrites  they  are  of 
liliputian  size  as  compared  with  their  terrestrial  relatives. 
C.  Kapp  ( Westermann  s Monatshefte , August,  1881)  re- 
gards this  discovery  as  authentic  and  thinks  that  meteoric 
stones  and  meteoric  iron  are  o?ily  of  organic  origin  ; indeed, 
that  the  earliest  beginnings  of  all  planets  (including,  of 
course,  the  earth)  were  organic  formations  ! 

Some  savants  have  lately  gone  so  far  in  this  direction  as 
to  completely  reverse  the  view  hitherto  considered  as  true 
and  to  regard  all  inorganized  nature  as  a product  of  vital 
activity,  while  others  again  maintain  that  both  the  organic 
and  the  inorganic  kingdoms  are  products  of  differentiations, 
or  evolutions,  proceeding  from  an  originally  indifferent 
condition  of  matter.  Life,  on  this  hypothesis,  is  only  a 


138 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


peculiar  mode  of  motion  of  the  molecules  of  the  primal 
matter  in  a state  of  condensation,  and  this  theory  would 
render  any  explanation  of  the  origin  of  that  primal  matter 
unnecessary. 

All  this  is  as  yet  a mere  hypothesis  or  conjecture  and 
goes  no  more  to  solve  the  problem  in  an  empirical  or 
scientific  sense  than  does  the  hypothesis  of  the  cosmical 
origin  of  organized  substances  or  germs.  For  if  the  latter 
hypothesis  were  shown  to  be  the  explanation  of  the  presence 
of  life  on  the  surface  of  the  globe,  it  would  not  yet  answer 
the  question  of  the  first  origin  of  organized  matter  as  such  or 
of  the  first  germ  of  life  — unless  indeed  the  theory  be  ac- 
cepted, as  explained  above,  that  living  matter  has  always 
existed  or  at  any  rate  must  be  regarded  as  latent  in  the 
primal  condition  of  matter.  But  since  the  idea  of  the  eter- 
nity of  an  individual  is  illogical  and  all  that  is  individual  is 
transitory  ; and  seeing  that  motion  as  such  is  eternal  or 
without  beginning,  yet  life  as  a special  or  definite  mode 
of  motion  must  have  had  a beginning,  we  are  no  nearer  to 
a solution  of  the  difficulty  ; we  must  assume  or  admit  that 
the  organized  compound  in  the  form  of  what  is  called  proto- 
plasm or  the  material  of  primal  formation  or  life  must  have 
originated  at  some  time  in  some  place.  And  this  offers  in 
reality  no  logical  nor  empirical  difficulty.  On  the  contrary, 
spontaneous  generation  in  this  restricted  and  limited  sense 
must  be  regarded  as  a logical  postulate  or  as  a necessary 
demand  of  human  reason  and  science.  It  is  the  logical 
consequence  of  the  appearance  and  gradual  growth  of  or- 
ganized beings  on  the  surface  of  our  own  or  of  other  planets, 
and  an  indispensable  hypothesis  by  the  side  of  the  funda- 
mental facts  of  astronomy  and  geology.  It  would  imply  a 
perfectly  inadmissible  interruption  of,  and  break  through, 
the  universal  causal  relationship  that  obtains  throughout 
the  correlation  of  nature,  if  we  admitted  that  there  was  a 
single  moment  in  the  history  of  the  formation  of  the  earth 
and  the  celestial  bodies  in  which  that  unity  was  interrupted 
or  destroyed  by  a supernatural  intervention  or  creative  act. 


ORIGINAL  GENERATION. 


139 


Most  probably  living  combinations  of  material  particles,  and 
similar  combinations  endowed  with  vitality,  have  at  all 
times  existed  somewhere  in  the  universe,  and  have  de- 
veloped further  wherever  certain  external  circumstances  or 
conditions  were  realized.  Long  before  the  commencement 
of  animal  or  vegetable  life  on  the  earth  there  may  have 
existed  combinations  either  living,  or  endowed  with  vitality, 
which  developed  further  on  that  same  earth,  when  its  sur- 
face had  reached  a condition  favorable  to  such  development. 

But  those  also  who  do  not  accept  the  hypothesis  of  the 
cosmical  origin  or  the  cosmical  diffusion  of  organic  matter, 
or  who  prefer  not  to  take  it  into  account,  are  forced  to 
admit  that  somewhere  and  at  some  period  in  the  history  of 
the  formation  of  the  earth,  there  must  have  been  a moment 
at  which  organic  matter  sprang  from  inorganic  matter  under 
conditions  as  yet  unknown.  That  such  a springing  into 
existence  may  perhaps  occur  no  longer  at  this  day  or — we 
had  better  say — has  not  yet  been  observed,  proves  nothing 
against  the  occurrence  of  spontaneous  generation  at  an 
earlier  period  and  under  conditions  differing  essentially  from 
those  of  the  age  we  live  in.  It  is  obvious  that  the  general 
conditions  of  life  in  the  primordial  or  earliest  periods  of  our 
planet  must  have  been  very  different  from  those  of  the 
present  and  must  have  been  favorable  to  the  springing-up 
for  spontaneous  generation.  We  need  only  remember 
that  at  that  time  the  atmosphere  was  replete  with  that  most 
important  of  organic  elements,  carbon,  which  subsequently 
assumed  the  shape  of  coal-mines  ; we  need  but  think  of  the 
difference  in  the  density  and  the  electrical  conditions  of  the 
atmosphere,  the  peculiar  chemical  and  physical  state  of  the 
primeval  ocean,  and  many  other  similar  facts.  “When  our 
planet,”  says  Professor  O.  Schmidt , in  his  excellent  little 
work,  Darwinismus  und  Descendenzlelire,  (Leipzig,  1873,) 
‘ ‘ had  arrived  at  that  stage  of  evolution  at  which  the 
temperature  of  the  surface  permitted  the  formation  of  water 
and  the  existence  of  albuminous  substances,  the  quantities 
and  proportions  of  the  component  parts  of  the  atmosphere 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


I4O 

were  different  from  what  they  are  now.  A thousand  cir- 
cumstances which  we  are  unable  to  produce,  may  have  led 
to  the  formation  of  protoplasm  or  of  the  primal  organism 
from  its  constituent  particles.”  Thus  there  is  not  the  re- 
motest scientific  difficulty  in  imagining  that  the  law  of  nature 
from  which  spontaneous  generation  must  have  resulted,  is 
at  present  latent,  or  hidden,  owing  to  the  absence  of  the 
necessary  conditions,  whereas  it  was  in  full  activity  in  the 
past,  under  conditions  essentially  different.  This  is  also 
evidenced  by  the  fact  that  a large  number  of  widely  diffused 
inorganic  substances,  such  as  precious  stones,  pit-coal, 
granite,  quartz,  etc.,  are  apparently  formed  no  longer  at 
the  present  time,  yet  no  one  has  any  doubt  that  they 
originated  in  the  past  in  perfectly  natural  fashion  as  the 
products  of  chemico-physical  forces. 

‘ 1 Chemistry,”  says  Virchow  ( Gesammelte  Abhandlungen 
zur  wissenschaftliclien  Medicin , 1856,  p.  25,)  ‘‘has  not  yet 
built  up  any  of  the  formative  substances  (sarcode,  albumen, 
starch)  out  of  their  elements,  nor  can  as  yet  natural  phi- 
losophy, outside  the  living  organization,  force  any  of  these 
given  bodies  to  form  cells.  What  does  it  matter  ? If  the 
history  of  the  earth  shows  us  that  there  was  a time  when 
none  of  these  substances  existed  or  could  exist  ; if 
we  see  that,  later  on,  certain  periods  arose  in  which 
these  bodies  were  formed,  and  from  them  organized  bodies, 
what  can  we  conclude  save  that  in  the  most  unusual 
conditions  the  miracle  happened,  which  means  the  mo- 
mentary manifestation  of  the  latent  law?”  And  again, 
in  another  place:  ‘‘We  can  only  suppose  that,  as  I said 
on  a previous  occasion,  at  a certain  period  of  the  earth’s 
evolution  unusual  conditions  supervened,  under  which 
elements  entering  into  new  combinations,  in  statu  nascente , 
assumed  the  vital  movement,  and  thus  the  ordinary 
mechayiical  conditions  were  formed  into  vital  ones.”  And 
finally  : “ The  law  by  virtue  of  which  the  formation  of 
organic  generation  or  cells  takes  place,  must  necessarily 
be  eternal,  and  at  each  period  at  which,  in  the  course  of 


ORIGINAL  GENERATION. 


I4I 

natural  processes,  the  conditions  are  favorable  to  its  mani- 
festation, organic  formation  results.  The  cause  of  this 
activity  can  only  be  sought  in  a peculiar  arrangement  of 
physical  conditions,  in  an  unusual  interaction  of  ordinary 
materials  occurring  at  specific  periods  ; and  the  process  of 
life , both  in  its  beginning  and  in  its  repetition , must  be 
referred  to  a special  kind  of  mechanics.  ” 

However,  since  the  above  was  written,  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  abiogenesis  has  entered  upon  quite  a new  stage  and 
one  far  more  favorable  to  the  theory  of  its  occurrence  at 
the  present  time,  in  consequence  of  the  influence  of  the 
famous  Darwinian  theory,  and  the  investigations  of  Prof. 
Haeckel  of  Jena  on  the  monera , the  simplest  primal  organ- 
isms out  of  which  the  first  cellular  organisms  must  have 
developed,  which  investigations  open  up  new  paths  to 
Science.  According  to  these  investigations  the  cell  or 
organic  unit,  which  had  previously  been  taken  as  the 
starting  point  of  spontaneous  generation,  and  which  was 
regarded  as  such  even  by  a Virchow,  appears  in  its  complete 
formation  of  integument,  substance,  contents  and  nucleus, 
as  a formation  that  is  much  too  complicated  and  too  highly 
organized  to  be  regarded  as  the  subject  of  autogony,  that 
is  to  say,  as  arising  immediately  from  inorganic  matter. 
Such  a springing  into  existence  appears  as  much  of  a mir- 
acle, or  an  impossibility,  from  a scientific  point  of  view,  as 
the  spontaneous  growth  of  a more  highly  organized  crea- 
ture from  dead  matter,  which  was  at  one  time  so  widely 
believed  in.  On  the  contrary,  the  cell  is  itself  apparently 
a product  of  a whole  cycle  of  preceding  processes  of  devel- 
opment, and  the  beginning  of  life  is  not  to  be  sought  for 
in  it,  but  much  further  backwards  among  yet  lower  forms 
of  life,  lately  discovered,  which  exist  not  as  cells  nor  as 
cell-like  forms,  but  as  mere  lumps,  as  wholly  unformed 
slime,  or  an  aggregation  of  albuminoid  jelly.  These 
simplest  primal  organisms,  which  are  nothing  more  than 
simple  living  protoplasmic  masses  without  any  differentia- 
tion, “organisms  without  organs,”  and  which  stand  just 


142 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


on  the  boundary  between  organic  and  inorganic  bodies, 
have  been  named  by  Haeckel  monera  (from  novyprir,  simple,-) 
and  organisms  more  simple  or  more  imperfect  than  these 
cannot,  he  thinks,  be  imagined.  It  is  these  only  which 
have  arisen  and  still  arise  from  spontaneous  generation,  by 
autogony  or  self-formation  from  compounds  of  organic 
materials  ; and  from  these  only  can  be  evolved  cells  or 
cellular  formations.  ‘ ‘ They  prove  irrefragably  that  life  is 
united  not  to  a special  anatomical  arrangement  of  the  living 
body  ; not  to  the  co-operation  of  various  organs  ; but  to 
a certain  physico-chemical  constitution  of  formless  material, 
to  the  albuminoid  substance  which  we  call  sarcode  or  pro- 
toplasm, a nitrogenous  carbon-compound  in  a semi-fluid 
state.  Life  is  therefore  not  the  result  of  organization,  but 
the  reverse.  The  formless  protoplasm  makes  the  organized 
forms.  . . . The  oldest  organisms , which  arose  by  sponta- 
neous generation  from  inorganic  matter , must  have  been 
monera .”  (Haeckel,  Das  Protistenreich,  1878,  p.  84.) 

The  conception  of  getieratio  czquivoca,  or  spontaneous 
generation,  appeared  only  so  difficult,  Haeckel  thinks,  while 
those  simplest  organisms,  the  monera,  were  still  unknown; 
but  now  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  represent  the 
earliest  stage  of  life,  and  that  from  them  were  developed 
cells  or  cellular  organisms,  in  a manner  upon  which  we 
cannot  discourse  here  at  greater  length.  The  real  or  true 
cells  arose  by  internal , the  pseudo-cells  or  cell-like  anu- 
cleated  cytods  by  external  evolution  of  the  monera.  The 
first  stage  of  this  evolution  is  represented  by  the  most  un- 
differentiated cell-form,  which  in  the  shape  of  amoeba  or 
Proteus  animalcula  still  leads  an  independent  solitary  exist- 
ence at  this  day.  Such  an  undifferentiated  cell  of  the 
simplest  amoeboid  form  is  the  original  egg,  as  it  appears 
throughout  almost  in  a uniform  configuration  in  the  ovary 
of  the  most  widely-separated  animals.  The  most  ancient 
amoebae  lived  as  hermits  ; from  them  were  formed  little 
amoeba  communities,  such  as  may  yet  be  found  as  groups 
simple  homogeneous,  naked  communities  of  cells  or 


ORIGINAL  GENERATION.  143 

Aggregations  of  monads,  living  together.  Here  we  find  the 
earliest  demarcation  between  the  vegetable  and  animal  king- 
doms ; for  the  naked  but  nucleated  amoeboid  cells,  capable 
of  movement,  partake  rather  of  the  latter,  while  those 
which  are  furnished  with  an  enclosing  membrane,  which 
imbibes  fluid  nourishment  through  its  pores,  rather  belong 
to  the  former. 

As  regards  the  first  or  earliest  appearance  of  the  monera, 
it  must,  according  to  Haeckel,  have  taken  place  at  the 
bottom  of  the  primal  ocean  which  enveloped  the  earth 
as  it  first  cooled  down.  “Many  generations  of  monera 
may  for  thousands  of  years  have  peopled  the  primal  ocean 
which  covered  our  cooled-down  globe,  ere  the  change  of 
the  external  conditions  of  life  which  were  suitable  to  these 
homogeneous  original  forms,  brought  about  also  a change  in 
their  own  homogeneous  albuminous  bodies.’’  The  greater 
number  of  the  species  of  Monera  which  so  arose  may  have 
again  perished  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  while  others 
survived  and  became  the  ancestors  of  the  whole  organized 
world. 

Haeckel  does  not  answer  the  question,  whether  this  pro- 
cess of  autogony  or  of  the  spontaneous  generation  of 
albuminous  and  living  material  from  lifeless  matter,  which 
must  certainly  have  taken  place  formerly,  still  continues 
at  the  present  day.  But  the  question  may  in  all  probability 
be  decided  in  the  affirmative,  although  this  spontaneous 
generation  takes  place  under  circumstances  and  conditions 
with  which  we  are  as  yet  not  fully  acquainted,  and  which, 
if  we  knew  them,  we  should  possibly  not  be  able  to  produce 
artificially.  However,  it  does  not  follow  by  any  means  that 
this  must  hold  good  for  ever  and  at  all  times.  When  we 
think  of  the  magnificent  results  of  synthetical  chemistry, 
which  has  succeeded  in  building  up  by  chemical  means, 
out  of  none  but  inorganic  substances,  a whole  mass  of 
materials  and  bodies  which  were  thought  to  be  producible 
only  by  the  vital  activity  of  plants  and  animals,  such  as  : 
urea,  alcohol,  ether,  grape-sugar,  racemic  acid,  ocalic  acid, 


1 44 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


formic  acid,  butyric  acid,  acetic  acid,  lactic  acid,  fat, 
amyloids,  alkaloids,  etc., — that  man  need  be  no  visionary 
who  holds  that  chemistry  may  at  some  future  day  succeed 
in  artificially  producing  living  protoplasm  ; and  we  may 
readily  agree  with  IV.  Wundt,  (. Lehrbuch  der  Physiologie , 
p.  169,)  when  he  says  that  our  present  chemical  synthesis 
“ is  perhaps  only  the  first  step  towards  such  a consumation.” 
When  once  we  are  in  a position  to  make  living  proto- 
plasm, we  shall  also  be  able  to  originate  artificially  or 
voluntarily  those  lowliest  forms  of  life,  about  which  there 
is  at  present  so  much  controversy  going  on  between  the 
opponents  and  supporters  of  heterogony  or  spontaneous 
generation,  a controversy  which  is  carried  on  with  such 
extreme  bitterness,  although,  to  our  thinking,  it  is  not  at 
all  likely  for  science  to  derive  any  benefit  from  it.  Nature 
presents  but  a single  chain  of  cognate  phenomena,  unbroken 
by  any  insuperable  gaps.  By  her  own  power — whether 
in  one  fashion  or  in  another  — she  brought  forth  the  first 
materials  and  forms  of  life  ; by  her  own  power  she  caused 
these  to  develop  further  and  further  ; by  her  own  power 
she  will  destroy  again  her  own  creations,  and  resuscitate 
them  in  other  places,  and  in  new  forms  and  shapes  ! 


Secular  Generation. 


“ Evolution,”  is  henceforth  the  magic  word  by  which  we  shall  unravel,  or  at  least 
get  into  the  way  of  unraveling,  all  the  enigmas  that  surround  us.—  Haeckel. 

The  hypothesis  of  creation,  as  postulated  by  certain  dogmatic  principles  in  a 
pretended  connexion  with  religious,  i.  t.,  ethical  veiws,  cannot  for  a moment 
be  entertained  by  natural  science.  The  ever-recurring  attempt  at  effecting  a 
compromise  between  revelation  and  knowledge  is  a useless  playing  with 
ideas  — O.  Taschenberg. 

We  shall  recognize  that  by  this  rule  all  that  is  fixed  is  only  apparent;  growth,  In 
the  form  of  evolution,  alone  is  true  and  lasting. — von  Baer. 

If  thou  wilt  comprehend  and  hold  fast  these  things,  then  will  it  be  clear  to  thee 
that  Nature,  set  free  and  relieved  from  her  haughty  lords,  does  all  things  by 
intuition  and  without  the  interference  of  the  gods. — Poems  of  Lukretius 
Carus.  (99  — 52  b.  c.) 

A BIOGENESIS  is  succeeded  by  biogenesis,  or  that 
long  succession  of  organized  forms  and  species,  which, 
when  the  first  beginnings  of  life  were  once  given, 
was  to  populate  the  surface  of  the  world  by  gradual  devel- 
opment in  the  course  of  millions  of  years.  This  proceeded 
in  strict  conformity  with  the  modified  external  vital  con- 
ditions of  the  earth’s  surface  becoming  gradually  more 
favorable  ; and  the  more  removed  and  diverging  these 
conditions  are  from  those  in  existence  at  the  present  day, 
the  more  removed  and  diverging  do  these  forms  or  beings 
appear  also  from  those  which  now  surround  us,  and  which 
must  be  regarded  as  the  latest  and  highest  outcome  of  a 
long  process  of  evolution  and  improvement.  For  the  more 
ancient  the  fragments,  traces  or  outlines  of  this  earlier 
organic  world  found  in  the  individual  strata,  or  portions  of 
strata,  of  the  earth,  the  lower  and  the  less  complex  are  in 
general  the  forms  or  formations  corresponding  to  these, 
and  vice  versa.  At  the  same  time  we  come  across  the  very 

(145) 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


146 

significant  fact  that  the  periods  of  development  of  these 
lowest  organisms  must  have  been  in  comparison  by  far  the 
longest,  and  that  these  periods  decrease  in  length  in  pro 
portion  as  the  newly  arising  forms  of  life  ascend  in  the 
scale  of  evolution.  Thus  the  archezoic  or  primordial  period , 
during  which  none  but  the  lowliest  water-plants  and  water- 
animals  could  exist  at  the  bottom  of  what  used  to  be  the 
hot  or  tepid  original  ocean  which  covered  the  whole  earth, 
was  probably  longer  than  the  united  four  geological  periods 
which  succeeded  it.  Many  million  years  had  to  pass  away 
prior  to  the  evolution  of  the  protista,  mollusca,  vermes,  of 
some  Crustacea  and  of  the  lowest  cryptogams,  such  as  algae; 
millions  of  years  again  went  by  before  the  great  age  of 
fishes  and  fern  forests  set  in.  During  the  vast  period  of 
this  primordial  age  it  is  probable  that  only  aquatic  plants 
and  animals  existed  ; certain  it  is  that  in  all  the  rock  for- 
mations of  this  age  there  has  not  been  found  a single  fossil 
which  can  be  referred  with  accuracy  to  a terrestrial  organism. 
Only  at  the  very  fag-end  of  this  long  period  in  the  Upper 
Silurian  formation,  do  we  find  the  first  definite  represen- 
tatives of  the  vertebrate  type,  or  the  lowest  organized 
descriptions  of  fish,  preceded  by  the  lowest  vertebrates, 
which  Haeckel  designates  as  the  “ acrania.”  The  ocean  of 
the  Silurian  age,  which  left  a deposit  of  no  less  than  20,000 
feet  in  thickness,  swarmed  with  invertebrate  animals  of 
all  kinds,  such  as  rhizopoda,  brachiopoda,  cephalopoda, 
radiata,  polyps,  articulata,  graptolites,  corals,  mollusca, 
Crustacea,  etc.  ; among  the  last,  the  remarkable  trilobites, 
tripartite  crab-like  animals,  played  the  principal  part. 
They  lived  through  this  whole  transitional  period  in  great 
numbers  and  varieties  of  form,  in  a thousand  different 
species,  but  died  out  completely  during  the  later  carbon- 
iferous age.  At  the  same  time,  the  habitat  of  the  Silurian 
animals  was  the  same  over  the  whole  surface  of  the  globe. 

The  age  of  the  fishes  and  fern -forests,  which  is  termed 
chronologically  the  palceozoic  or  primary  age  and  which 
itself  is  composed  of  three  great  subdivisions,  deposited 


SECULAR  GENERATION. 


147 


strata  42,000  feet  in  thickness,  and  occupied  a period  com- 
puted at  a third  of  the  whole  strata-forming  ages.  The  two 
highest  classes  of  animals,  birds  and  mammals,  are  com- 
pletely wanting  during  this  period  ; on  the  other  hand,  as 
the  distinction  between  land  and  water  which  in  the  sequel 
became  gradually  more  strongly  marked,  began  to  show 
itself,  there  appeared  the  first  terrestrial  plants  and  animals, 
which  only  succeeded  in  gaining  a permanent  footing  after 
an  obstinate  and  long-continued  struggle  with  the  changing 
physical  conditions  surrounding  them.  But  during  this 
whole  long  period  aquatic  life  was  so  much  the  more  preva- 
lent that  the  whole  of  this  age,  as  stated  above,  has  been 
styled  the  age  of  fishes.  Fishes  existed  in  many  forms  and 
kinds, although  they  had  not  yet  attained  their  most  highly 
developed  type,  which  is  that  of  the  osseous  fishes.  Side  by 
side  with  these,  the  vegetable  kingdom  attained  during  the 
middle  subdivision  of  the  primary  period,  the  carbonferozis 
age,  that  luxuriant  development,  the  useful  results  and 
remains  of  which  we  are  fully  enjoying  at  the  present  day. 
In  this  primal  vegetation,  especially  in  its  earlier  stages,  it 
is  hardly  necessary  io  remark  that  we  have  before  us  plants 
of  the  most  primitive  and  original  character.  They  are 
flowerless  and  seedless,  the  ancestors  of  our  present  equi- 
setaceae  and  silices.  But  whereas  these  latter  are  but  the 
dwarfed  remnants  of  their  mighty  precursors,  crowded  out 
by  better  developed  rivals,  and  no  longer  able  to  attain  any 
remarkable  size  and  development,  their  great  ancestors 
grew  till  they  formed  vast  impenetrable  tropical  marshy 
forests,  many  expanding  into  gigantic  trees,  whose  dead 
bodies  during  the  long  carboniferous  period,  built  up,  layer 
upon  layer,  the  coal-seams  which  we  work  at  the  present 
day.  A dreary  monotony  was  the  characteristic  of  those 
primeval  forests  of  the  pre  historic  ages,  in  which  there  was 
no  trace  of  the  variety  and  the  floral  beauty  of  the  modern 
vegetable  kingdom,  and  in  which  no  butterfly  flitted  from 
flower  to  flower,  no  bee  flew  about,  humming  in  its  search 
for  honey,  and  no  bird  hopped  gaily  from  twig  to  twig. 


148  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

Scantily  leaved  calamites,  or  the  pillar-like  and  almost 
branchless  trunks  of  sigillaria  or  lepidodendra,  with  their 
furcated  crown  of  bristly  leaves,  held  supreme  sway — while 
pale  green  ferns  or  cabbage-like  scaly  haulms  occupied  the 
place  of  the  underwood,  the  grass  and  the  flowers.  Foliage 
trees  were  utterly  wanting  at  this  period.  In  these  hot, 
moist  forests,  contrasting  by  their  extent  and  luxuriance  with 
those  that  existed  at  the  beginning  of  the  preceding  period, 
there  appeared  new  formations  of  animal  life,  emancipated 
from  the  supremacy  of  water,  air-breathing  articulata  and 
vertebrata,  the  latter  in  the  form  of  creeping  amphibia, 
prone  on  the  ground,  and  able  to  live  equally  well  in  water 
or  on  land.  The  variety  of  their  forms  increases  largely  in 
the  following  Permian  period,  while  the  plants  of  the  car- 
boniferous age  are  being  gradually  supplanted  by  the  more 
highly  developed  gymnosperms.  Toward  the  close  of  this 
epoch  we  meet  for  the  first  time  with  lizard-like  animals, 
being  the  earliest  representatives  of  the  reptilia , the  lowest 
order  of  the  higher  vertebrata  ; these  were  to  rule  the  third, 
or,  leaving  out  the  primordial  age,  the  second  great  sub- 
division of  the  earth’s  history,  that  is  to' say,  the  secondary 
or  mesozoic  periods.  But  even  in  that  age,  the  amphibious 
animals  still  hold  a very  subordinate  place,  as  regards  num- 
ber and  variety,  in  comparison  to  the  colossal  abundance 
of  fishes,  which,  especially  in  the  form  of  the  ganoidian  or 
enamel-scaled  fishes,  characterize  several  strata  of  the  lime- 
stone formation,  as  for  instance  the  Kupferscliiefer,  (the 
marl-slate  of  the  Permian.)  Numerous  embryonic  or  mixed 
types,  which  were  subsequently  to  give  rise  to  new  forms 
by  division  and  migration,  impress  on  the  palaeozoic  age 
the  stamp  of  the  highest  degree  of  imperfection.  Within 
the  most  diverse  types,  classes,  orders  and  families  we 
always  meet  first  with  the  more  imperfect  design  ; some- 
times they  rise  swiftly  to  the  highest  possible  development, 
and  subsequently  disappear,  to  make  room  for  other  forms 
belonging  to  a family  of  a higher  grade.  In  the  course  of 
this  development  there  are  undoubtedly  to  be  noticed 


SECULAR  GENERATION. 


149 


criteria,  of  an  apparently  lawless  rising  and  falling-off  of 
individual  forms  ; yet  we  cannot  but  perceive  therein,  on 
the  whole,  an  unmistakable  progress  from  the  simpler  to 
the  more  complex,  and  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  for- 
mations. 

The  same  remark  holds  good  in  regard  to  the  subsequent 
secondary  period  of  the  mesozoic  age,  which  follows  now, 
and  which,  from  the  prevalence  of  the  so-called  creeping 
animals  and  of  the  higher  development  of  the  vegetation, 
has  been  termed  the  age  of  reptiles  and  of  conifers.  It 
consists  of  the  three  great  subdivisions  of  the  triassic, 
jurassic  and  cretaceous  formations  and  embraces  about  the 
tenth  or  eleventh  part  of  the  organic  history  of  our  globe. 
The  enormous  development  of  the  vegetable  kingdom 
during  the  preceding  periods  had  relieved  the  terrestrial 
atmosphere  of  the  surplus  of  carbonic  acid,  a gas  deleterious 
to  the  higher  air-breathing  animals,  which  was  theretofore 
present  in  it,  and  had  caused  the  greater  part  of  it  to 
subside  beneath  the  ground  in  the  form  of  coal.  Thence- 
forward, the  existence  of  higher  animal  life  on  the  earth 
became  possible,  and  it  rose  stage  by  stage,  while  the 
older  forms  receded  more  and  more  into  the  background  or 
disappeared  altogether.  Among  those  that  disappeared  at 
the  beginning  of  this  epoch  are  the  remarkable  trilobites  or 
tripartite  crustaceans  of  the  primordial  ocean,  as  well  as  the 
strange,  brilliantly  mailed  fishes  of  the  silurian  age.  The 
huge  display  of  the  kingdom  of  creeping  things,  the  reptilia, 
imparted  a peculiar  idiosyncracy  to  this  middle  period,  as 
mentioned  heretofore.  During  this  period  the  whole  of  the 
subdivisions  of  the  animal  kingdom  also  underwent  a rich 
and  multifarious  development,  which  was  connected  with 
an  increasing  elevation  and  extension  of  dry  land  and  a 
greater  diversification  of  the  conditions  of  life,  especially 
in  consequence  of  the  vivifying  changes  of  clouds  and 
winds,  and  of  light  and  heat,  which  had  now  set  in.  Side 
by  side  with  the  palseozoic  cryptogams  or  flowerless  plants, 
was  now  evolved  a rich  flora  of  conifers,  cycads  and  palms, 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


150 

and  eventually  of  foliage  trees.  The  waters  swarmed  with 
varied  forms  of  the  simplest  animals,  as  well  as  beautiful 
radiates,  corals  and  sea-urchins.  The  cephalopoda , those 
greedy  pirates  of  the  molluscan  kingdom,  which  had  existed 
in  thousands  of  species  during  the  silurian  age,  now  reached 
their  highest  development.  Mussels  and  snails  showed 
a marked  increase,  and  the  Crustacea , or  lobster-class, 
represented  in  the  preceding  age  almost  by  the  trilobites 
alone,  now  appear  in  whole  classes  and  species.  “ Butterflies 
and  libellulcE  are  seen,  like  dream-shapes  pointing  to  a 
close  blossoming  future.”—  Dodel.  But  most  of  the  new 
and  interesting  forms  are  evolved  in  the  vertebrate  phylum. 
Among  the  fishes  appear  for  the  first  time  the  teleostei  or 
osseous  fishes , destined  to  almost  completely  supersede  their 
more  imperfect  predecessors  with  cartilaginous  skeletons. 
In  overpowering  variety  and  multiplicity  of  species  are  seen 
the  amphibia  and  reptilia,  towering  in  strange  and  some- 
times colossal  shapes,  and  besides  these  wre  encounter  avian 
and  mammalian  forms  in  their  earliest  beginnings,  marching 
like  heralds  of  an  approaching  future. 

“The  mesozoic  world,”  says  Zittel  ( Aus  der  Urzeit, 
1872,)  “surpasses  the  preceding  ages  not  only  in  its  variety, 
but  also  by  a higher  degree  of  perfection,  both  collectively 
and  in  its  individual  parts.  In  the  vegetable  kingdom, 
cycads  and  palms  and  further  on  the  most  highly  developed 
type  of  dicotyledonous  foliage-trees,  and  in  the  animal 
kingdom  the  three  highest  classes  of  vertebrates,  viz.,  reptiles 
birds  and  mammals,  make  their  appearance  as  entirely  or 
almost  entirely  new  elements  among  those  that  previously 
existed,  and  this  fact  imparts  a character  of  greater  dis- 
tinction to  the  whole  array.  But  even  within  the  individual 
classes  and  orders,  forms  of  more  perfect  organization 
have  almost  everywhere  crowded  out  the  earlier  and  un- 
developed ones.” 

“ Finally,  the  gradual  springing  into  blossom  of  ceratites 
and  ammonites  may  be  accepted  as  a proof  of  the  fact  that 
throughout  nature  there  exists  a tendency  to  gradually 


SECULAR  GENERATION. 


151 

fill  up  all  places  in  her  economy  with  an  ever  more  perfect 
Personnel.  No  less  characteristic  is  the  number  of  the  so- 
called  collective  forms  ’ ’ etc.  etc. 

Yet  another  step  forward,  and  we  come  to  the  tertiary 
or  cainozoic  age  (from  k aivo?,  new,)  which,  it  is  true,  barely 
embraces  the  third  part  of  the  organic  history  of  the  earth, 
but  which  must  be  reckoned  as  having  lasted  many 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  years.  In  this  period  the  present 
aspect  of  things  begins  to  prevail  more  and  more,  and  in 
progression,  too,  that  proceeds  at  such  a regular  rate,  that 
Lyell  thought  proper  to  arrange  it  in  three  subdivisions,  in 
accordance  with  the  greater  or  lesser  relationship  of  their 
fossil  testacean  shells  to  those  of  the  present  time.  These 
subdivisions  are ; the  eocene , or  dawn  of  recent,  with 
per  cent,  of  shells  of  living  species  of  testacea  ; the  miocene , 
or  less  recent,  with  about  17  per  cent.;  and  the  pliocene , or 
more  recent,  with  from  35  to  40  per  cent,  of  the  same.  This 
division  has  in  the  course  of  time  obtained  general  accept- 
ance. As  far  as  the  vegetation  of  this  period  is  concerned, 
it  is  characterized  by  palms  and  foliage-trees,  while  in  the 
animal  kingdom  the  highest  class,  the  mammalia , pre- 
dominate, so  that  this  epoch  has  been  styled  the  age  of 
mammals  and  foliage-trees.  This  change  did  not  occur 
without  concomitant  changes  in  the  surface  of  the  earth 
itself,  which,  gradually  losing  its  former  general  character, 
became  more  and  more  specialized.  The  vast  oceans  of 
yore  were  split  up  into  smaller  independent  basins  ; each 
great  continent  developed  its  individual  characteristics  of 
landscape  and  climate,  of  geographical  and  biological 
peculiarities.  The  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms  as- 
sumed more  and  more  the  character  of  those  now  existing 
with  their  infinite  variety.  “For  the  first  time  a brilliant 
world  of  flowers  unfolded  to  the  sunshine,  and  the  modest 
plants  of  an  earlier  age  which  flourished  unperceived, 
yielded  the  mastery  to  their  coquettish  rivals,  gorgeous  in 
color  and  in  fragrance.’’  — Dodel.  Among  animals  the 
lowliest,  up  to  the  fishes,  already  possessed  their  present 


152  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

form  in  all  its  essentials.  But  while  the  monstrous  tran- 
sitional types  of  the  amphibian  and  reptilian  worlds  dis- 
appeared, which  had  characterized  the  former  period,  similar 
transitional  mammalian  types  appeared  in  great  variety. 
There  arose  the  oldest  fore-runners  of  our  present  hoofed 
animals,  ruminants,  and  pachyderms,  in  some  places  in 
such  vast  numbers  as  cannot  now  be  found  anywhere  on 
the  earth’s  surface,  the  warm  luxuriant  climate  of  the  earlier 
tertiary  period  yielding  them  a sufficient  vegetable  growth 
for  food.  The  later  tertiary  period  is  characterized  by  the 
gradual  drying-up  and  absorption  of  the  great  molasse 
ocean,  and  the  permanent  elevation  of  the  Alpine  ranges, 
with  all  the  effects  wrought  by  these  great  events  on  the 
geographical  and  climatic  conditions  of  the  continents,  and 
in  it  the  average  temperature  of  the  earth  was  raised  i6°  F. 
and  the  distribution  and  regulation  of  the  zones  of  the 
earth  became  more  like  what  they  are  at  present.  During 
this  period  both  the  invertebrata,  and  the  fishes  and  birds 
attained  in  all  essentials  their  existing  development,  while 
the  variety  of  the  fauna  of  the  higher  vertebrate  animals 
surpassed  everything  that  can  be  seen  at  this  day  in  the 
most  luxuriant  scenery  of  the  tropics.  Then  appeared 
those  colossal  proboscides  (mastodons,  dinotheria,  etc.,) 
whose  descendants  are  represented  among  us  by  our 
elephants  and  walruses;  then  arose  also  hyaenas  and  viverras 
and  the  terrible  machairodus,  belonging  to  the  feline  tribe, 
with  its  dagger-like  side-teeth,  five  inches  long,  the  pre- 
cursor of  those  carnivorous  beasts  of  prey,  whose  meridian 
period  is  found  in  the  succeeding  diluvial  age.  Neither 
are  numerous  representatives  of  the  remarkable  race  of  apes 
wanting  in  this  period. 

In  the  following  and  last  great  division  of  the  earth’s 
history,  the  so-called  quaternary  or  cultural  age  (the  post- 
tertiary  of  Lyell,)  which  is  divided  into  the  two  sections  of 
the  dilivium  or  drift,  and  the  alluvium  or  new  deposit,  we 
stand  almost,  if  not  quite,  on  the  threshold  of  the  present 
time.  Although  this  period  seems  very  brief  in  comparison 


SECULAR  GENERATION. 


153 


with  its  predecessors,  and,  according  to  Haeckel,  represents 
only  one-half  per  cent,  of  the  organic  history  of  the  earth, 
yet  with  its  two  great  glacial  periods , intervening  between 
the  tertiary  and  quaternary  ages  it  embraces  at  least  a lapse 
of  100,000  years,  and  probably  far  more.  All  the  changes 
which  took  place  in  living  things  during  this  time,  ex- 
pended themselves  exclusively  on  the  highest  animal  forms; 
the  lines  of  demarcation  of  the  present  geographical  pro- 
vinces of  fauna,  which  placed  a limit  to  the  further  spread 
of  individual  species,  were  then  already  in  existence.  In 
the  quaternary  age,  as  the  last  and  highest  stage  of  terrestrial 
evolution,  appears  on  the  scene  of  existence  the  highest  form 
of  life,  our  own  race,  Man , in  some  measure  the  summit 
and  crown  of  the  graduated  development,  although  his 
half-brute  precursors,  his  preparatory  forms,  had  already 
existed  in  more  or  less  protracted  succession  during  the 
tertiary  period.  On  account  of  the  vast  importance  of 
this  event,  which  was  henceforth  to  exercise  an  all-embrac- 
ing influence  on  the  whole  future  of  the  earth  and  on  its 
vegetable  and  animal  inhabitants,  the  quaternary  period 
has  been  named  the  anthropological  or  more  correctly  the 
anthropozoic  age.  At  any  rate,  the  discoveries  of  modern 
investigation  compel  us  to  reckon  the  antiquity  of  ma?i  on 
the  earth  at  a long  succession  of  thousands,  perhaps  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  years,  and  not,  as  was  formerly 
done,  at  a very  much  shorter  lapse  of  time,  scarcely  ex- 
ceeding the  historic  period.  The  latest  researches,  as  well 
as  general  considerations,  make  it  appear  in  the  highest 
degree  probable  that  the  much  controverted  existence  of 
the  so-called  tertiary  man  is  neither  a myth  nor  a fable  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  earliest  existence  of  man  on  the  earth 
goes  back  into  the  last  or  perhaps  even  into  the  middle 
subdivision  of  the  age  preceding  the  quaternary,  the  great 
tertiary  period.  According  to  the  famous  American  palae^ 
ontologist,  Professor  O.  E.  Marsh  (Paper  read  before  the 
American  Scientific  Association,  August  28,  1879,)  it  is 
not  excessive  to  set  down  the  origin  of  man’s  existence  as 


154 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


far  back  as  the  last  glacial  period  of  Europe,  that  is  to  say, 
at  250,000  years.  But  in  the  opinion  of  the  author  quoted, 
it  appears  to  be  proved  by  Professor  Whitney  s famous 
discovery,  in  the  American  pliocene,  of  undoubtedly  human 
remains  and  utensils  made  by  human  hands,  that  the  tertiary 
man  must  have  existed  even  prior  to  the  time  mentioned. 

Be  this,  however,  as  it  may,  considering  the  enormous 
period  taken  up  by  the  evolution  of  the  earth,  which  period 
must  be  set  down  at  many  millions  of  years,  man  must 
always  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  latest  and  most  recent 
results  of  the  great  organic  process  of  terrestrial  formation 
and  evolution,  which  finds  in  him  in  some  measure  its 
highest  and  thus  far  its  final  expression.* 

This  progress  of  the  organic  history  of  the  earth,  of 
which  we  have  given  here  but  quite  a general  outline, 
proves,  in  our  opinion,  clearly  and  without  the  shadow  of 
a doubt,  that  a perfecting  and  evolving  principle,  due 
partly  to  internal,  partly  to  external  physical  conditions,  is 
universally  active,  spurring  on  the  individual  forms  to  an 
ever  higher  development  by  countless  intermediate  steps 
and  through  protracted  spaces  of  time,  or  causing  continual 
changes  in  them.  Of  course,  if  all  these  intermediate  steps, 
and  the  countless  transitions  which  connect  all  individual 
forms  with  one  another,  be  left  out  of  the  reckoning,  and  if 
the  moneron  or  the  primal  slime  be  set  side  by  side  with  a 
highly  developed  form,  such  as  man,  it  becomes  impossible 
to  understand  how  the  one  could  spring  from  the  other, 
without  taking  into  account  the  millions  upon  millions  of 
intermediate  forms.  Even  within  a very  limited  circle  of 
forms  this  appears  often  impossible  ; a fortiori  it  cannot  be 
possible  in  the  great  whole.  Thus  the  sao  hirsuta,  a trilo- 
bite  from  the  Bohemian  beds,  which  has  already  been 
ranged  in  twelve  different  genera  and  seven-and-twenty 

* The  important  question  of  the  antiquity  of  man  on  the  earth  is  thoroughly 
treated  in  the  excellent  work  of  the  famous  English  geologist  Lyell,  On  the 
antiquity  of  Man.  A more  condensed  exposition  of  the  matter  may  be  found  in 
the  author’s  Man  and  his  place  in  Nature , part  I ; also  in  the  note  on  p.  160  et 
seq.  of  his  work  Aus  Natur  und  IVissenschaft. 


SECULAR  GENERATION. 


155 


different  species,  is  so  unlike  the  later  developments  pro- 
ceeding from  it,  that  it  would  not  be  regarded  as  the  same 
animal  were  it  not  that  the  transitional  forms  can  be 
distinctly  shown.  Similar  examples  of  palaeontological 
series  of  development  might  be  cited  in  large  numbers. 

It  stands  to  reason  that  it  must  not  be  supposed,  as  was 
done  by  the  old  school  of  natural  history,  that  the  organic 
stages  of  evolution  can  be  represented  as  an  unbroken 
chain,  on  which  the  links  follow  one  another  in  direct  suc- 
cession ; or,  in  other  words,  that  we  are  to  begin  with  the 
monera  or  the  sponge,  and  thence  proceed  through  all 
geological  periods,  following  a strict  sequence  in  time,  until 
we  reach  the  most  highly  organized  forms,  eventuating  in 
man.  This  idea  is  so  completely  at  war  with  facts  that  it 
was  necessarily  abandoned  so  soon  as  facts  became  better 
known.  The  consequence  was  that  the  whole  theory  of 
evolution  fell  for  a time  into  disrepute.  The  organic 
graduation  is  not  a simple  one  ; it  is  complex  and  full  of 
ramifications,  which  are  often  difficult  to  trace.  The  great 
organic  kingdoms  consist  of  a number  of  independent 
divisions  or  groups  ( e . g.,  radiate  or  star-like  animals, 
mollusca,  articulata,  vertebrata)  of  which  it  is  impossible  to 
say  that  they  are  strictly  graduated  and  leveled  up  on  the 
top  of  each  other.  On  the  contrary,  each  division,  after 
branching  out  from  the  main  trunk  or  common  stem,  de- 
veloped without  connection  with  the  collateral  branches  to 
such  a height  as  its  nature  or  structure  admitted  of,  very 
much  like  the  branches  and  twigs  of  a tree,  each  of  which 
develops  independently  of  its  neighbors,  until  it  reaches  a 
certain  size  or  height,  and  then  either  dies  off,  or  remains, 
or  is  overtaken  by  other  branches  that  are  growing  up. 
Thus,  an  individual  group,  although  springing  from  a 
much  lower  point  in  the  main  trunk,  may,  in  its  highest 
developments,  overtake  and  get  ahead  of  the  one  that 
originated  further  up,  without  in  the  least  interfering  with 
the  general  growth  and  development  of  the  tree  as  such, 
or  infringing  the  law  of  progress  as  a whole.  And  thus, 


156  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

the  development  of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  being  the  less 
perfect,  did  not  necessarily,  as  was  formerly  believed,  pre- 
cede the  development  of  the  animal  kingdom,  being  the 
more  perfect  of  the  two ; but  both  kingdoms  have  evolved 
simultaneously  and  side  by  side  with  one  another,  from 
the  primal  stock  of  those  lowest  existences,  the  protista, 
which  stand  midway  between  the  two  kingdoms.  However, 
the  lowest  strata  have  always  contained  the  representatives 
of  the  typical  forms  of  the  higher  and  later  developments  in 
none  but  their  earliest  beginnings,  thus  on  the  one  hand 
proving  clearly  that  there  are  successive  stages  of  evolu- 
tion, and  on  the  other  showing  that  the  theory  of  a single 
line  of  evolution  and  of  the  transformation  of  one  great 
class  into  another  cannot  possibly  be  sustained.  Each 
individual  example  has  the  tendency,  as  we  have  said, 
not  to  change  into  the  next  higher  form,  but  to  further 
develop  and  perfect  itself  after  its  own  type.  Thus,  the 
cephalopoda,  being  a sub-division  of  the  mollusca,  are 
perfect  animals  of  their  type,  and  as  such  stand  far  above 
many  groups  of  fishes,  albeit  the  latter  stand  much  higher 
as  a class  in  the  general  scale  of  animal  existence.  The 
same  holds  good  of  the  articulata  which,  although,  as  a 
class,  they  rank  far  below  the  vertebrata,  yet  in  their 
highest  development,  the  bees  and  ants  rise  to  a point  in 
many  respects  closely  approaching  man  himself.  The 
Vertebrate  type,  although  bearing  within  itself  the  highest 
conditions  for  organization,  and  therefore  leaving  all  other 
classes  far  behind  it  in  its  ultimate  development,  actually 
begins  with  forms  which,  in  themselves,  stand  much  below 
the  representatives  of  those  same  classes.  If  Professor 
Haeckel  is  right,  this  type  begins  with  beings  of  such  a 
very  low  organization  that  they  were  not  even  looked  upon 
as  fishes  by  their  original  discoverers,  but  were  thought 
to  be  worms  or  snails.  It  is  also  in  evidence  that  these 
remarkable  animals  closely  connect  the  great  subdivision 
of  vertebrata  with  the  invertebrata  or  mollusca.  Yet,  de- 
spite this  lowly  origin,  the  vertebrate  phylum  in  its  higher 


157 


SECULAR  GENERATION. 

developments  has  so  surpassed  all  other  phyla,  that  a direct 
comparison  of  its  highest  representatives  with  one  another 
is  scarcely  possible.  The  great  law  of  the  progress  and 
evolution  of  organized  Nature  shows  itself  all  the  more 
clearly  by  the  fact  of  this  group  having  attained  such  a 
high  development.  In  a great  many  instances  we  are  able, 
without  much  difficulty,  to  trace  back  the  more  modern  to 
the  more  ancient  forms,  or  to  show  how  the  fossil  repre- 
sentatives of  later  classes  unite  in  themselves  the  general 
characteristics  of  subsequently  appearing  and,  to  some  ex- 
tent, of  still  existing  forms,  and  thus  become  after  a fashion 
the  progenitors  of  the  subsequent  generations.  The  pos- 
sibility of  this  proof  increases  year  by  year  in  proportion 
as  the  rapidly  advancing  palaeontological  investigation  of 
our  times  enlarges  the  extent  of  its  interesting  discoveries. 
Thus  the  teleostei  or  osseous  fishes  of  the  secondary  period 
and  of  the  present  time,  have  developed  from  the  embry- 
onal cartilaginous  and  enamel  fishes  (placoids  and  ganoids), 
which  are  the  representative  species  of  the  preceding  pe- 
riod, and  occupy  the  lowest  stage  of  the  piscal  type.  The 
transition  from  these  to  the  higher  group  of  toads,  the 
amphibia,  is  found  in  the  archegosaurus  (from  dpxyyoc, 
ancestor,  oavpor,  lizard)  of  the  palaeozoic  period,  which 
stands  midway  between  fishes  and  amphibians.  In  the 
formation  of  its  body  it  combines  characteristics  which  we 
now  meet  but  separately  among  fishes,  frogs,  salamanders, 
lizards  and  crocodiles,  and  which  make  it  clear  that  this 
animal  was  the  ancestor,  evolved  from  the  fish-type,  of  the 
saurians,  those  voracious  monsters,  which  dominated  the 
earth  in  the  secondary  period.  The  ancient  labyrinthodons 
or  fish-lizards,  of  which  the  archegosaurus  must  be  set 
down  as  one  of  the  earliest  representatives,  are,  in  Bzir- 
meister’s  opinion,  the  true  and  most  beautiful  prototypes 
of  the  amphibian  conception  in  its  totality,  a conception 
worked  out  in  many  different  forms  through  an  evolution 
of  millions  of  years.  They  combine  the  characteristics  of 
the  most  heterogenous  groups  which  subsequently  evolved 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


158 

from  them,  and  among  them  we  find  the  peculiarities  of 
saurians,  turtles,  frogs  and  fishes.  In  the  plesiosaurus  or 
the  snake-lizard  we  perceive,  as  it  were,  the  first  attempt 
of  nature  to  emerge  from  the  fish  and  reptile  period.  It 
has  the  body  of  a whale,  the  neck  of  a bird,  and  the  head 
of  an  alligator,  and  on  this  account  this  animal,  which 
sometimes  reaches  up  to  eleven  feet  oi  length,  has  very 
appropriately  been  compared  to  a snake  drawn  out  through 
a turtle.  From  that  time  forward  it  has  beet;  modified  and 
repeated  in  countless  species.  “ It  is  strange”  says  Zittel, 
‘‘to  remark  how  the  characteristics  of  the  most  widely 
divergent  aquatic  animals  appear  combined  in  the  Plesio- 
saurus just  as  though  Nature  had  wished  to  produce  in  it 
the  prototype  of  a swimming  vertebrate  of  higher  organi- 
zation. We  must  now  seek  for  its  cranial  characteristics  in 
two  perfectly  distinct  orders  ; its  long  neck  having  been 
inherited  by  aquatic  birds,  and  its  fins  by  marine  mammals, 
while  its  sternum  has  been  developed  in  a special  manner 
by  the  turtles.”  Its  contemporary,  the  mighty  ichthyo- 
saurus, or  fish-lizard,  which  has  from  twenty  to  twenty-five 
feet  in  length,  is,  as  its  name  implies,  a creature  midway 
between  fish  and  lizard,  and  likewise  a fine  specimen  of  an 
ante-deluvian  collective  type,  or  a reptile  in  the  form  of  a 
fish.  Its  body  resembles  that  of  the  dolphin,  its  head  that 
of  the  crocodile,  and  its  tail  that  of  the  fish.  The  protero- 
saurus,  a true  reptile  from  the  marl-slate,  is,  according  to 
K.  Vogt , the  first  five-toed  animal  of  the  higher  vertebrate 
type.  The  mosasaurus  found  in  the  later  chalk  ( Maestricht ) 
with  its  cranium  from  three  to  four  feet  long,  with  its  snake- 
like body  extending  from  fifty  to  seventy  feet  and  containing 
more  than  one  hundred  vertebrse,  with  its  short  webbed  fore- 
feet, seems  most  closely  allied  to  the  fabulous  sea-serpent, 
in  which  some  still  believe  at  the  present  day.  The  megalo- 
saurus,  a monster  of  colossal  proportions,  combines  within 
itself  the  anatomical  peculiarities  of  reptiles  and  of  mam- 
mals, and  the  order  of  the  so-called  dinosaurians , to  which 
it  belongs,  combines  in  a most  remarkable  manner  the 


SECULAR  GENERATION. 


159 


characteristics  of  lizards,  crocodiles,  mammals  and  even 
birds.  A.  step  higher  towards  mammals  is  seen  in  the  igua- 
nadon,  a gigantic  lizard  with  massive  body,  thirty  feet  in 
length  and  from  twelve  to  fifteen  feet  in  height,  “ with  which 
the  creative  force  of  Nature  appears  as  if  it  would  close  the 
gigantic  race  of  amphibians.” — ( Buck  der  Geologiei) 

The  pterosaurians  or  winged  lizards  (not  to  be  con- 
founded with  the  pterodactyl,  the  “ winged  lizard  ’ ’ of  Lyell), 
are  an  offshoot  of  the  lizards  which  approaches  the  avian 
type,  while  in  the  omithoskelidce,  or  reptiles  with  legs  of 
birds,  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  birds  are  to  be  found. 
One  of  these  ornithoskelidae  is  the  aetosaurus,  recently 
described  by  Prof.  O.  Fraas  from  the  Stuttgard  Keuper,  or 
the  mailed  bird-lizard  of  Stuttgard,  which  is  so  perfect  a 
median  type  between  a creeping  and  flying  animal  that  it 
has  received  the  name  of  the  “eagle-lizard.”  By  means  of 
these  and  of  other  discoveries,  both  of  reptiles  with  avian 
characteristics  and  of  birds  with  reptilian  characteristics, 
the  apparently  wide  gulf  between  two  classes  which  are  as 
widely  separated  as  those  of  birds  and  reptiles , has  been 
narrowed  to  such  an  extent  that  there  is  now  no  difficulty 
in  tracing  both  to  the  same  origin,  and  in  setting  the  bird 
down  as  a reptile  adapted  to  an  aerial  life.  The  transfor- 
mation itself  probably  dates  from  the  jurassic  age.  During 
the  same  period  originated  the  pterodactyl , which  is  also 
adapted  for  flying,  an  enigmatic  aeriously-shaped  animal, 
half  bat  and  reptile,  half  amphibian  and  bird,  which  has 
been  referred  to  all  classes  in  turn.  In  the  cetiosaurus  are 
combined  the  characteristics  of  the  whale,  the  phoca,  and 
the  crocodile.  In  the  tertiary  period,  during  which  the 
present  condition  of  things  came  more  and  more  into  view, 
the  vertebrate  animals  already  assumed  the  mammalian 
trunk  and  appendages,  while  still  preserving  to  some  extent 
the  reptilian  form.  As  the  first  representative  of  the  higher 
classes  of  Mammalia,  appears  the  palcEotherium  (from  na.Xa.16e 
old,  and  Sripiov,  animal),  an  interesting  animal,  of  which 
many  specimens  are  extant,  ranging  from  the  size  of  a hare 


i6o 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


to  that  of  a horse,  and  showing  characteristics  of  the  horse, 
tapir,  pig  and  rhinoceros  ; these  specimens,  being  different 
varieties  of  the  same  genus,  must  have  existed  in  very  large 
numbers  at  the  beginning  of  the  tertiary  period  in  South- 
Western  Germany,  especially  on  the  Schwabische  Alps,  in 
Wurttemberg.  This  may  be  regarded  to  some  extent  as  a 
prototype  of  mammalian  classes,  for  the  conceptions  or  ten- 
dencies of  the  most  various  mammalian  forms  are  dormant 
therein.  From  this  animal  the  horse  of  the  present  day  was 
evolved  through  a series  of  the  most  varied  intermediate 
forms  (the  orohippus  of  the  eocene,  the  mesohippus  of  the 
lower,  and  the  miohippus  or  anchitherium  of  the  upper 
miocene,  the  hipparion  or  protohippus  of  the  lower,  and 
the  pliohippus  of  the  upper  pliocene).  Not  less  interesting 
for  the  palaeontologist  or  student  of  the  pre-historic  world, 
are  the  near  relatives  of  the  palaeotherium,  the  anoplotlieria , 
which  also  originated  in  the  earliest  tertiary  age,  and,  being 
possessed  of  the  characteristics  of  the  pachydermata,  the 
ruminantia  and  the  swine,  must  be  regarded  as  the  ances- 
tral form  of  our  present  swine,  hippopotami  and  ruminants. 
The  tillotheriuni , which  has  quite  recently  been  discovered 
by  Professor  Marsh  in  the  mountains  of  the  far  West  of 
North  America,  was  an  animal  which  combined  within  itself, 
in  a truly  surprising  manner,  the  most  opposite  peculiarities 
of  the  most  widely  divergent  mammals,  such  as  beasts  of 
prey,  rodents,  hoofed  animals,  etc.  The  most  probable 
ancestor  of  the  tapir-group  has  been  discovered  by  the 
American  palaeontologist  Leidy  in  the  basin  of  the  Platte 
river,  and  received  of  him  the  name  of  hyracluis.  In  point 
of  fact,  the  researches  of  American  palaeontologists,  such 
as  Marsh,  Leidy,  Cope,  etc.,  in  the  wide  plains  of  the 
Mississippi,  have  brought  to  light  countless  remains  of 
fossil  mammalia,  chiefly  of  hitherto  unknown  species,  which 
furnish  as  many  proofs  of  the  theory  of  evolution.  — In  the 
later  tertiary  period,  the  same  as  in  the  subsequent  dihivial 
age,  we  find  gigantic  mastadons  and  dinotheria  as  fore- 
runners of  our  present  elephants,  the  terrible  machairodus 


SECULAR  GENERATION. 


161 


as  fort-runner  of  our  present  feline  species,  the  cave-bear 
as  ancestor  of  our  present  brown  bear,  the  bos  primigenius 
as  ancestor  of  our  neat  cattle,  and  so  on.* 

These  examples  might  be  multiplied  to  any  extent,  but 
all  palaeontological  knowledge  is,  as  it  were,  but  one  ex- 
ample. The  lowest  forms  of  each  group  first  appear,  and 
from  them  arises  the  ascending  succession  of  the  higher, 
in  species  as  in  individuals.  “The  remains  found  in  the 
crust  of  the  earth,’’  says  Oersted,  “ reveal  to  us  a series  of 
ever  more  highly  developed  formations,  succeeding  one 
another,  until  at  last  the  conditions  were  reached  in  which 
man,  and  a vegetable  and  animal  kingdom  suitable  for 
man,  could  prosper.”  “ My  belief  in  the  law  of  progress,’’ 
says  even  more  emphatically  the  famous  English  naturalist 
Professor  R.  Owen , at  the  conclusion  of  an  excellent  de- 
scription of  ancient  mammalia  of  the  mesozoic  period, 
“from  the  general  to  the  special,  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher,  has  been  confirmed.  This  is  shown  by  the  suc- 
cession of  mammalian  forms  from  the  trias  upwards,  as 
through  the  other  classes  from  the  earliest  dawn  of  life  up 
to  the  present  day.” 

This  law  of  gradual  and  ascending  development  has 
been  continued  from  pre-historic  times  down  to  the  present 
living  and  organic  world,  and  has  impressed  upon  it  its 
unmistakable  stamp.  That  science  of  comparative  anatomy 
or  “philosophy  of  organized  forms,”  as  it  is  termed  by 
Haeckel,  a science  cultivated  with  especial  predilection  in 
our  own  time,  rests  on  the  attempt  to  prove  the  unity  of 
organic  forms  throughout  the  animal  world,  and  on  the 

* Even  down  to  the  present  time  some  such  early  transitional  or  intermediate 
forms  have  existed  as  “living  fossils.”  The  remarkable  Australian  ornithor- 
hynchus  is  an  intermediate  form  between  quadrupeds,  birds  and  amphibians. 
When  it  was  first  brought  to  Europe  it  was  believed  to  be  an  imposition  ; it  was 
an  old  moleskin,  people  said,  attached  to  the  mandible  of  a duck.  The  lepido- 
tiren  of  South  America  and  Africa,  being  a connecting  link  between  amphibia 
and  pisces,  breathes  half  by  gills,  half  by  lungs.  The  gill-bearing  Axolotl 
(Siredon  mexicanus ),  if  reared  on  land,  loses  its  gills  and  turns  from  an  aquatic 
into  a terrestrial  animal,  breathing  by  lungs,  and  standing  in  the  same  relation 
to  its  previous  form  as  a developed  animal  does  to  its  larval  shape.  Further 
examples  of  palaeontological  transitional  forms  may  be  found  in  the  author’s 
work  on  the  Darwinian  Theory. 


162 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


scientific  recognition  of  the  existence  of  a joint  plan  (?)  or 
fundamental  principle  underlying  all  animal  forms,  and 
admitting  of  no  modifications  or  deviations  except  in  a 
few  particulars.  An  unbroken  chain  of  the  most  numerous 
and  multifarious  analogies  binds  together  tlie  whole  animal 
world  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest.  Even  our  own  race, 
which  we  have  hitherto  in  our  pride  regarded  as  raised  so 
high  above  the  rest  of  the  animal  kingdom  and  as  a 
creation  of  a different  and  nobler  kind,  is  far  from  being 
an  exception  to  this  general  rule.  Its  whole  bodily  organi- 
zation connects  it  so  closely  and  so  narrowly  with  the 
animals  that  come  nearest  to  it,  being  the  highest  repre- 
sentatives of  the  vertebrate  type,  that  no  really  learned 
man  thinks  at  this  day  (as  people  did  formerly)  of  making 
a special  “human  kingdom’’  of  it  or  merely  setting  man 
down  as  a special  “order’’  of  mammalia,  distinct  from  the 
order  of  the  so-called  “ quadrumana.”  Nowadays,  man  is 
universally  regarded  as  nought  but  a special  “family”  of 
the  highest  mammalian  order,  the  Primates  (that  is  to  say, 
the  top  forms  or  lords  paramount).  “ Thus  Man  shows,” 
says  Haeckel,  ( Antliropogenie , third  ed.,p.  87)  “in  all  the 
essential  characteristics  of  his  internal  organization  such  an 
agreement  with  other  mammals,  that  comparative  anatomy 
has  never  entertained  any  doubt  as  to  his  belonging  to  this 
class.  The  whole  internal  construction  of  the  human  body 
so  completely  agrees  with  that  of  all  other  mammals,  that 
by  the  side  of  it  the  dissimilarity  of  the  external  form 
weighs  as  nothing.”  Even  his  brain,  the  organ  of  his 
mind  and  thought,  is  far  from  being  an  exception  to  this 
rule  ; it  is  a mammalian  brain,  modified  and  brought  to  a 
higher  stage  of  development  in  size,  shape,  internal  struc- 
ture and  composition,  as  has  been  conclusively  shown  by  the 
deep  researches  of  many  brain-anatomists,  and  in  keeping 
with  this  circumstance  it  develops  the  mental  capabilities 
spread  throughout  the  animal  world  to  a higher  degree  of 
perfection. 

The  law  of  gradual  transition  reveals  itself  for  the  third 


SECULAR  GENERATION.  163 

time  in  the  history  of  the  development  of  individual  animal 
entities.  Even  at  this  day,  all  animal  forms  so  strongly 
resemble  each  other  in  the  earliest  period  of  their  individual 
procreation,  that  in  order  to  recognize  their  fundamental 
type  it  is  only  necessary  to  refer  to  this  history  of  their 
development.  It  is  a very  interesting  and  significant  fact 
that  all  embryos  or  germs  resemble  each  other,  and  that  it 
is  absolutely  impossible  to  distinguish  an  inchoate  sheep 
from  the  inchoate  man,  whose  genius  may  perhaps  shake 
the  world  at  a future  time.  This,  indeed,  is  true  to  such 
an  extent  that  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  trace  in  the 
development  of  a given  animal,  or  of  man  himself,  how  the 
embryo  in  the  various  stages  of  its  corporeal  development 
represents  and  repeats  the  chief  types  of  the  groups  coming 
next  below  it  in  the  animal  kingdom,  thus  yielding,  as  it 
were,  a miniature  of  the  whole  range  of  existence  put  in  a 
narrow  frame ; and  this  attempt  has  proved  by  no  means 
unsuccessful. 

“The  opponents  of  Evolution,”  says  Haeckel,  “who 
look  upon  the  gradual  development  of  man  out  of  lowly 
animal  forms  and  his  original  descent  from  a unicellular 
moneron  as  a miracle  past  belief,  do  not  consider  that  just 
the  same  miracle  is  actually  repeated  under  our  own  eyes, 
in  the  short  space  of  nine  months,  in  the  embryonic  devel- 
opment of  each  individual  human  being.  This  same  cycle 
of  varying  forms  through  which  our  animal  ancestors  have 
passed  during  the  course  of  many  millions  of  years,  has 
been  traversed  by  every  one  of  us  within  his  mother’s 
womb,  during  the  first  forty  weeks  of  his  individual  ex- 
istence.’ ’ * 

Whoever  looks  with  unprejudiced  eyes  on  these  three 
clearly  defined  consentaneous  groups  of  evolutional  facts  — 
the  palaeontological,  the  comparative  anatomical  and  the 

* For  further  details  see  the  excellent  work  of  J.  H.  Huxley,  Evidences  for 
Man's  Place  in  Nature , essay  on  the  relationship  of  man  to  the  animals  next 
below  him;  also  the  Author’s  Der  Mensch  und  sei7ie  Stellung  in  der  Natui ; 
lastly  Professor  Haeckel’s  various  writings,  in  which  that  ingenious  author 
proves  conclusively  that  the  history  of  the  embryo  is  nothing  more  than  an 
epitome,  or  a condensed  and  shortened  repetition  of  the  history  of  the  race. 


164  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

embryological  gradations — and  throws  a glance  over  the 
whole — quite  apart  from  all  preconceived  theories  and 
explanations  brought  forward  hitherto — cannot  feel  any 
doubt  that  in  the  whole  organic  world  there  exists  a neces- 
sary internal  connection,  and  that  one  thing  must  have 
followed  and  must  follow  after  the  other.  Even  if  we  had 
not  lived  during  the  last  twenty  years,  through  the  great 
revolution  in  organic  science  brought  about  by  the  teachings 
of  Darwin,  the  general  result  would  yet  remain  certain  to 
every  philosophical  mind  — as  it  was,  in  fact,  some  scores 
of  years  since,  to  the  minds  of  some  naturalists,  gifted 
with  greater  perspicacity  than  their  colleagues,  such  as  a 
Lamarck,  a Geofifroy  St.  Hilaire,  or  most  of  the  adepts  of 
the  so-called  naturalistic  school.  As  far  back  as  1855,  five 
years  before  Darwin,  the  author  of  this  work  spoke  in  its 
first  edition  of  that  general  result  with  as  much  certainty 
as  was  possible  at  that  time,  and  represented  the  genesis  of 
new  species  to  be  a natural  process,  brought  about  by 
descent,  variation,  and  development,  resting  his  argument 
upon  considerations  generally  derived  from  research  in 
palaeontology,  comparative  anatomy  and  embryology. 
Nor  did  he  fail  to  apply  these  considerations  to  the  very 
“question  of  questions,”  and  to  set  forthwith  a boldness 
which  drew  down  upon  him  a storm  of  obloquy  from  all 
quarters,  that  “animal  descent  of  man’’  about  which,  at 
present,  scarcely  any  scientist  entertains  the  slightest  doubt. 
As  regards  the  intrinsic  causes  of  these  phenomena  of  trans- 
formation, he  was,  no  doubt,  obliged  to  confine  himself,  in 
the  then  state  of  knowledge,  to  pointing  out,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  external  circumstances  or  changing  conditions  of 
the  surface  of  the  earth,  and  on  the  other  the  possibility  of 
embryonic  transformations,  expressing  at  the  same  time  a 
hope  that  future  researches  might  throw  more  light  on  the 
question  This  hope  was  fulfilled  much  more  rapidly  than 
he  could  have  ventured  to  dream  ; it  met  with  its  realization 
by  the  theory  which,  in  such  a brief  lapse  of  time,  became 
famous  all  over  the  world  — the  theory  of  that  great  Eng- 


SECULAR  GENERATION.  165 

lishman,  Charles  Darwin , who  with  keen  insight  and  on 
the  strength  of  an  abundance  of  facts,  laid  down  the  follow- 
ing as  the  natural  causes  of  evolution  : (1)  The  struggle 

for  existence  ; (2)  Variation  and  the  variability  of  species  ; 
(3)  Transmission  and  heredity  ; (4)  Natural  Selection  acting 
through  enormous  periods  of  time.  Within  a compara- 
tively small  number  of  years  this  admirable  theory  has 
obtained  the  mastery  of  organic  science  ; it  has  especially 
found  acceptance  among  the  younger  scientists,  who  no 
longer  bow  to  the  former  conception  of  “species.”  In 
fact,  scarcely  anyone  who  examines  Darwin’s  exposition 
and  views  without  prejudice  can  seriously  deny  that 
species,  or  creatures  organized  in  a new  fashion,  can 
and  must  have  been  evolved  in  the  manner  described 
by  him.  But  it  becomes  quite  another  matter  when 
the  question  is  propounded,  whether  this  manner,  and 
the  variations  described  by  Darwin,  are  sufficient  to  ex- 
plain the  total  growth  and  the  super-abundant  variety  of 
the  organic  world.  In  all  probability  this  is  not  the  case, 
and  with  a view  to  this  end  we  must  take  into  account  a 
series  of  other  momentous  facts  to  which  Darwin  paid  little, 
if  any,  attention.  Among  these  facts  we  encounter,  first 
and  foremost,  the  very  essential  influence  of  external  and 
varying  conditions  of  life  — such  as  climate,  soil,  food,  air, 
light,  heat,  distribution  of  land  and  water,  etc.  This  influ- 
ence appeared  so  important  to  the  famous  French  scientist 
Geojfroy  St.  Hilaire , that  he  considered  it  as  sufficient  by 
itself  to  explain  the  variation  of  species.  Next  we  must 
consider  the  influences  of  exercise,  habit,  necessities,  adap- 
tation to  changed  conditions  of  life,  use  or  disuse  of  organs 
or  of  parts  of  the  body,  the  crossing  of  breeds,  etc.,  which 
influences  the  Frenchman  Lamarck,  Darwin’s  great  prede- 
cessor, and  the  true  father  of  the  evolutional  philosophy, 
who  was  for  so  long  unjustly  decried  as  a dreamer,  and 
who  died  in  poverty,  looked  upon  as  the  real  causes  of  the 
variation  of  species.  Then  we  must  take  into  account  the 
powerful  influence  of  migration  on  organized  beings,  a 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


1 66 

matter  to  which  a living  German  scientist,  Professor  Moriz 
Wagner  of  Munich,  first  drew  attention,  in  connection 
with,  and  for  the  purpose  of  complementing,  Darwin’s 
theory.*  Lastly  we  must  not  forget  the  influence,  to  which 
notice  was  called  in  the  first  edition  of  this  book,  and  which 
relates  to  the  remarkable  phenomena  of  the  so-called  alter- 
nation of  generations,  parthenogenesis,  metamorphosis, 
etc.,  viz.,  the  variations  in  the  germ  or  the  egg  induced  by 
external  or  internal  forces,  through  which  in  individual 
cases  a change  and  development  of  the  world  of  fossil 
plants  and  animals  may  have  been  brought  about  by  leaps 
and  bounds  rather  than  by  a gradual  process.  These  views 
have  been  stated  and  dilated  on,  at  greater  length,  by  one 
of  our  most  distinguished  German  scientists,  Professor 
Kolliker  of  Wurzburg,  who  based  upon  them  his  Theory 
of  Heterogeyieous  Generation , to  which  he  subsequently 
gave  the  name  of  The  Science  of  Evolution .f 

This  general  law  of  variation,  transformation  and  devel- 
opment, whatever  may  be  the  causes  of  the  change  in 
individual  instances,  being  once  laid  down  and  recognized, 
we  reach  a firm  standing-ground  for  the  solution  of  the 
apparently  almost  insoluble  question  as  to  the  “ Whence?  ” 
of  the  organic  world,  and  as  to  the  natural  causes  of  that 
which  in  the  heading  of  this  chapter  we  have  termed  “sec- 
ular generation  ’’  or  biogenesis,  as  the  sequel  of  primeval 
generation  From  the  least  promising  beginning  and  from 
the  simplest  organic  form-element,  which  the  combination 
of  inorganic  materials  evolved  by  spontaneous  generation 
from  the  lowliest  vegetable  or  animal  cells,  or  even  from  a 
yet  lower  or  yet  more  primal  organic  formation,  that  whole 
rich  and  multiform  organic  world  which  surrounds  us  at 
this  day  has  developed  itself  progressively,  in  the  course  of 

* See  M.  Wagner,  Die  Darwin' sche  Theorie  nnd  das  Migrationsgesetz  der 
Organismen , Leipzig,  1878. 

f Consult  Kolliker’s  essay  on  the  Darwinian  creation-theory  (Leipzig,  1864) ; 
further,  Zittel's  Aus  der  Urzeit,"  p.  594;  A . Wiegand's  Genealogie  der  Urzellen 
(Braunschweig,  1872);  Dr.  G.  yager's  In  Sachen  Darwin's , p.  176;  lastly,  the 
author’s  work  on  The  Darwinian  Theory , pp.  178  et  seq. 


SECULAR  GENERATION.  167 

endless  periods  of  time,  by  the  aid  of  natural  phenomena. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  nature  of  the  process  of 
evolution  as  regards  the  details,  however  much  may  yet 
remain  obscure  and  doubtful  in  regard  to  the  exact  manner 
in  which  the  organic  formation  has  taken  place,  this  much 
at  any  rate  we  can  aver  with  certainty  : that  it  has , and 
must  have , happened  without  the  interference  of  a super- 
natural power.  If  at  the  present  day  this  creation,  while 
we  survey  the  surrounding  Nature,  impresses  us  beyond 
measure,  and  if  we  cannot  entirely  repel  the  intellectual 
impression  which  points  to  the  existence  of  a direct  creative 
power,  this  feeling  is  in  reality  to  be  accounted  for  by  the 
fact  that  we  see  the  final  results  of  natural  forces  that  have 
worked  through  many  millions  of  years  spread  out  before 
us  in  one  aggregate  picture,  and  that,  while  we  look  only 
at  the  present,  without  remembering  the  past,  it  is  difficult 
for  us  to  imagine  at  first  sight  that  Nature  has  evolved  all 
this  out  of  herself.  And  yet,  there  is  no  getting  over  it. 
Whatever  may  have  happened  in  each  individual  instance, 
the  general  truth  rests  on  irrefutable  facts  ; there  is  the  law 
of  analogies,  existing  sometimes  in  the  domain  of  embry- 
ology,  sometimes  in  that  of  comparative  anatomy ; there 
are  the  prototypal  organisms  ; there  is  the  necessary  con- 
nection between  the  external  conditions  of  the  crust  of  the 
earth,  and  the  origin  and  form  of  organic  creatures  ; in 
fine,  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  higher  organic  forms  out 
of  the  lower  and  lowest,  keeping  pace  with  the  changes  in 
the  development  of  the  earth  ; and  there  is  the  paramount 
fact  that  the  origin  of  organized  beings  was  not  an  instan- 
taneous process,  but  one  extending  throughout  all  geologi- 
cal periods.  All  these  circumstances  and  conditions  are 
indubitable  truths,  and  are  wholly  incompatible  with  the 
idea  of  a personal  and  omnipotent  creative  power  ; such  a 
power  could  not  have  contented  itself  with  such  a slow, 
gradual  and  wearisome  process  of  creation,  nor  could  it 
have  rendered  the  progress  of  its  work  dependent  on  the 
stages  of  the  natural  evolution  of  the  earth. 


i68 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


The  work  of  Nature,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  very  antith- 
esis of  such  a conception  ; it  is  wholly  spontaneous,  and 
consisting,  as  it  does,  partly  of  fortuitous  and  partly  of 
necessary  productions,  it  is  infinitely  slow,  gradual  and 
climacterical.  Therefore  we  cannot  perceive  in  this  work 
anything  in  the  shape  of  a leap,  pointing  directly  to  a 
personal  volition  ; form  links  itself  on  to  form  and  transition 
on  to  transition.  “ Nature,’  ’ once  said  Linnseus,  “ takes  no 
leaps  ; ’ ’ and  every  new  discovery,  every  fact  in  the  fabric 
of  Nature,  furnishes  an  additional  proof  of  the  truth  of  his 
assertion.  Imperceptibly  the  plant  glides  into  the  animal, 
the  animal  into  the  man.  Despite  all  efforts,  we  have  not 
yet  been  able  to  draw  a hard  and  fast  line  between  the 
vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms,  widely  separate  though 
these  divisions  of  the  organized  world  appear,  and  there  is 
no  probability  that  we  ever  shall  be  able  to  do  so.  On  the 
contrary,  the  latest  researches  on  the  protista,  which  bridge 
the  gulf  between  the  two  kingdoms,  and  from  which  they 
have  developed  in  two  different  directions,  clearly  show  that 
these  are  in  turn  half  animal,  half  plant,  and  that  the  dis- 
tinctive features  of  the  two  types  clearly  emerge  only  in  the 
higher  stages  of  development.  Like  the  physique,  the 
intellectual  capacity  rises,  step  by  step  and  gradually,  from 
the  lowliest  and  least  noticeable  beginnings,  to  ever  higher 
and  more  perfect  developments,  until  it  reaches  what  is  as 
yet  its  highest  perfection  in  the  sensation  and  volition,  the 
imagination  and  ratiocination  of  man.  The  supposed  in- 
surmountable boundary  between  the  human  race  and  the 
animal  world,  which,  despite  all  the  progress  of  science,  is 
still  so  generally  believed  in,  is  fully  as  much  a myth  as 
any  other  strict  division  of  nature,  whether  man  be  looked 
at  from  a physical  or  an  intellectual  point  of  view  ; and  if, 
in  the  progress  of  civilization,  man  has  reached  to  a level 
on  which  he  towers  as  much  above  his  brute  relations  as 
God  did  formerly  above  man,  he  owes  this  to  nought  but 
that  same  gradual  evolution,  rising  stage  by  stage,  by  which 
the  whole  organic  world  has  been  procreated.  Geologists  \ 


SECULAR  GENERATION.  169 

set  down  the  age  of  the  human  race  — as  mentioned  in  an 
earlier  portion  of  this  chapter  — at  one  hundred  thousand 
years  at  the  very  lowest,  adding,  however,  that  this  figure 
is  probably  very  much  below  the  mark.  The  history  of  the 
existence  of  the  race,  on  the  contrary,  in  its  civilized  state, 
is  but  a few  thousand  years  old.  What  immense  periods  of 
time  must  therefore  have  elapsed  ere  man  could  have  reached 
such  an  intellectual  height  as  to  feel  the  need  and  devise  the 
means  of  transmitting  his  experiences  to  posterity  by  word 
and  writing,  ad perpetuam  rei  memoriam , to  use  the  standing 
formula  of  the  See  of  Rome.  And  what  right  have  we  to 
trace  back  to  supernatural  causes  or  to  a creative  will  what- 
ever may  be  done  and  has  been  accomplished  by  the  civil- 
ized man,  who  at  present  stands  at  the  top  of  a ladder  of  a 
hundred  thousand  years,  and  has  behind  him  and  beneath 
him  the  whole  work  of  countless  generations  ? If  we  but 
remember  his  humble  origin,  which  is  lost  in  the  impene- 
trable darkness  of  pre-historic  ages,  we  shall  look  at  the 
matter  in  quite  a different  light,  and  come  to  perceive  that 
such  a result  could  only  be  obtained  by  long  and  slow 
development  and  by  continued  improvement.  In  those 
earliest  times  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  highest  of  organ- 
ized creatures,  in  his  whole  physical  and  intellectual  being, 
was  much  more  closely  allied  to  the  brute  than  to  his  present 
form  and  condition.  The  oldest  human  bones  and  human 
skulls,  dug  out  of  the  very  bowels  of  the  earth,  exhibit  for 
the  most  part  rough  and  undeveloped  forms,  far  exceeding, 
in  their  resemblance  to  the  brute,  the  most  brute-like  of 
existing  races  of  men  ; and  yet  it  must  be  remembered  that 
these  fossils  belong  to  periods  much  further  removed  from 
the  real  genesis  of  man  than  the  time  in  which  they  were 
deposited  or  buried  is  from  the  age  we  live  in.  To  what  ex- 
tent the  formation  of  the  skull  of  Europeans  has  improved 
even  within  historic  ages  will  be  told  in  detail  in  a later 
chapter. 

If  it  be  assumed,  then,  contrary  to  all  scientific  ratioc- 
ination, that  the  hand  of  the  creator  superintended  all 


170 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


these  phenomena,  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,  scattered  in 
space  and  time , we  come  to  general  pantheistic  notions,  and 
in  that  event  it  becomes  impossible  to  deny  that  this  rela- 
tionship still  exists,  seeing  that  the  evolution  of  the  earth 
and  of  the  vegetable  and  animal  species,  that  live  thereon, 
has  not  ceased,  but  is  going  on  at  this  day,  the  same  as  it 
did  heretofore  In  that  event  it  must  also  be  assumed  that 
no  lamb  can  be  conceived  or  born  without  the  co-operation 
of  that  creative  power  ; that  no  child  can  cut  a tooth  with- 
out divine  assistance,  and  that  every  gnat  that  lays  its  eggs 
depends  on  the  care  of  that  supreme  power  for  the  hatching 
of  its  progeny.  But  science  has  long  since  proved  to  de- 
monstration that  these  processes  are  natural,  mechanical, 
and  spontaneous,  and  has  overruled  every  thought  of  a 
supernatural  interference.  And  thus,  these  circumstances 
may  be  used  by  us  in  support  of  the  views  expressed  above, 
for  it  is  justifiable  to  infer  from  the  natural  character  of  the 
present  processes  of  the  organic  world,  their  equally  natural 
origin,  and  vice  versa.  We  must  go  on  as  we  commenced. 

‘ ‘ A supernatural  origin  implies  a supernatural  continu- 
ation.” ” He  who  cancels  one  law  of  nature,  cancels  them 
all.”  (L.  Feuerbach.) 

‘‘Though  self-contained  as  an  individual,”  says  Bur- 
meister,  ‘‘the  earth  remained  in  a definite  immutable  re- 
lation to  its  environment,  and  whatever  occurred  upon  it, 
independently  of  that  relation,  was  accomplished  by  it  of 
its  own  accord  ; for  there  never  was,  and  even  at  this  day 
there  does  not  exist,  any  power  on  earth  save  that  which  is 
inherent  in  the  earth  itself.  By  that  inherent  power  it  de- 
veloped ; its  results  extended  exactly  as  far  as  this  power 
acted.  Where  the  terrestrial  forces  disappear,  every  ter- 
restrial action  also  ceases  and  determines,  and  what  it  could 
not  bring  forth  has  never  existed,  nor  will  ever  be  brought 
forth.” 

Never  has  science  gained  a more  brilliant  victory  over 
those  who  appeal  to  another  world  and  a supernatural  prin- 
ciple for  the  explanation  of  existence,  than  it  has  in  geology 


SECULAR  GENERATION. 


171 

and  palaeontology  ; and  never  has  the  human  mind  more 
emphatically  vindicated  the  rights  of  Nature,  even  under 
difficulties  which  can  only  be  understood  by  those  who  are 
thoroughly  familiar  with  the  history  of  science.  Nature 
knows  neither  a supernatural  origin  nor  a supernatural 
continuation  ; she,  the  all-bearing  and  the  all-devouring,  is 
her  own  Alpha  and  Omega,  her  own  generation  and  death. 
By  her  power  she  brought  about  the  so-called  creation,  and 
created  man  as  the  crown  thereof ; by  her  own  power  she 
will  take  him  back  again,  when  his  dwelling-place,  the  earth, 
has  completed  its  natural  term  of  life  in  the  endless  cycle 
of  worlds.  May  not  therefore  this  race  of  man  die  out  and 
disappear,  the  same  as  so  many  other  races  recorded  in  the 
history  of  the  organic  world  died  out  and  vanished  after 
having  attained  a certain  goal  ? and  may  not  another  and 
perhaps  a more  perfect  race  take  its  place?  No  one  has 
known,  no  one  knows,  and  no  one  will  ever  know  it,  save 
those  who  survive  ! 


The  Fitness  of  Things  in  Nature. 

(TELEOLOGY.) 


Design  is  introduced  into  the  world  by  the  reflecting  reason,  which  is  there- 
after startled  by  a miracle  of  its  own  creation.—  Kant. 

It  can  no  longer  be  doubtful  that  the  world  progresses  in  a manner  that  has 
no  resemblance  to  human  design  ; nay,  that  its  essential  method  is  such 
that,  measured  by  the  standard  of  human  reason,  it  can  only  be  regarded 
as  the  blindest  chance  ....  Development  “according  to  Nature”  is  one 
special  case  out  of  a thousand.  It  is  the  exception,  and  this  exception  is 
created  by  that  very  same  Nature  whose  apposite  self-preservation  is 
admired  by  your  short-sighted  teleologist. — F.  A.  Lange. 

Each  inapposite  condition  is  an  untenable  condition.  Each  development  is 
the  removal  of  something  which  ought  not  to  be,  of  something  inapposite, 
and  a transition  towards  something  apposite  that  does  not  exist  yet.— Dii 
Prel. 

Strife  is  the  parent  of  things. — Heraclitus  of  Ephesus. 

ONE  of  the  chief  strongholds  of  those  who  ascribe 
the  genesis  and  preservation  of  the  world  to  an  all- 
ruling and  all- organizing  creative  Power,  has  been 
and  still  is  the  so-called  Jit7iess  in  Nature.  Each  flower 
that  unfolds  its  many-colored  petals  ; each  gust  of  wind 
that  chases  away  a cloud  ; each  star  that  lightens  the  night ; 
each  leaf  that  flutters  in  the  air  ; each  wound  that  heals  ; 
each  thing,  each  phenomenon  of  Nature  ; all  these  afford 
the  faithful  teleologist  or  the  seeker  after  fitness  an  oppor- 
tunity of  admiring  the  unfathomable  wisdom  of  that  Higher 
Power.  Modern  investigation  and  natural  philosophy  have 
shaken  themselves  tolerably  free  from  these  empty  and 
superficial  conceptions  of  design,  and  leave  such  childish 
views  to  those  who  are  incapable  of  liberating  themselves 
from  such  anthropomorphic  ideas,  which  unfortunately  still 

(172) 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE.  173 

obtain  in  school  and  church  to  the  detriment  of  truth  and 
of  science. 

If  matter,  as  has  been  shown  in  our  earlier  chapters,  can- 
not exist  nor  be  thought  of  without  force,  motion  and  form, 
it  stands  to  reason  that  the  genesis  and  destruction  of  in- 
dividual forms,  existences,  and  institutions  of  nature  are 
a necessary  and  obvious  result  and  product  of  physical  ex- 
istence or  of  the  interaction  of  natural  forces.  Not  less 
obvious  and  indubitable  must  it  appear  that  these  natural 
forces,  by  their  mutual  millionfold  reactions,  must  deter- 
mine and  limit  each  other,  so  that  at  length  an  apparent 
order  and  design  must  have  arisen,  which,  if  we  look  at 
with  human  eyes  and  measure  by  the  standard  of  human 
institutions,  without  taking  into  consideration  its  original 
causes,  must  necessarily  appear  to  have  been  extrinsically 
called  into  being  by  a conscious  reason  ordering  things 
with  perfect  consciousness.  We  omit  to  note  in  limine , 
that  there  could  be  no  other  result,  owing  to  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  and  that  inapposite  and  unfitting  things 
and  institutions,  or  even  attempts  at  creating  such,  must 
have  perished  by  their  own  inherent  defects  in  course  of 
time  ; or,  in  other  words,  that  an  apposite  institution  is 
only  one  case  among  a thousand  inapposite  or  less  apposite 
ones,  which,  from  their  very  unfitness,  were  incapable  of 
surviving.  Therefore,  as  Kant  already  observed,  it  is  to 
our  reflecting  reason,  which  deals  only  with  what  it  has 
before  its  eyes  and  not  with  the  past,  and  which  judges  by 
the  standard  of  its  short  experience,  derived  from  human 
activity,  that  this  apparent  design  is  to  be  traced,  which  is 
really  nothing  more  than  the  necessary  result  of  the  inter- 
action of  natural  materials  and  forces,  and  of  their  develop- 
ment in  course  of  time  which  brings  everything  to  a certain 
level  by  preserving  those  things  which  have  vitality  in  them 
and  expunging  those  which  have  not.  Nature,  as  Dii  Prel 
correctly  remarks,  is  her  own  physician,  and  her  regular 
working  itself  represents  its  own  remedy,  by  which  what  is 
unfitting  is  weeded  out  and  none  but  the  fitting  things  are 


174 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


allowed  to  subsist.  It  is  the  organic  or  living  things  which 
are  more  particularly  capable  of  the  most  varied  modifi- 
cations and  adaptations  by  virtue  of  their  pliable  character. 
They  transmit  to  their  descendants,  in  ever  increasing  ratio, 
the  characteristics  thus  obtained,  while  the  succeeding  gene- 
rations, in  their  turn,  go  on  acquiring  new  properties  In 
this  way  we  arrive  at  an  ever  increasing  evolution  towards 
forms  and  conditions  imbued  with  ever  increasing  vitality, 
or,  in  other  words,  becoming  more  and  more  fitting  and 
apposite. 

This  view  is  so  simple  and  so  clear  that  it  must  neces- 
sarily commend  itself  to  sober  and  unprejudiced  minds, 
even  wfithout  any  further  scientific  investigation.  In  point 
of  fact,  it  was  clearly  expressed,  as  far  back  as  the  first 
century  after  Christ,  by  Lucretius  Cams , the  author  of  the 
famous  didactic  poem  De  rerum  naturd , who  says  : — 

“For  truly  the  origin  of  things  has  neither  been  led  up 
to  the  present  order  by  wise  pre-ordainment,  nor  have  its 
motions  been  regulated  by  the  compulsory  force  of  law  ; 
but  shaken  by  countless  impulses,  constantly  changing, 
endless  in  numbers  it  drove  through  the  universe,  and  at 
length,  after  attempting  every  form  of  motion  and  of  com- 
position, it  finally  arrived  at  the  present  order  of  things.” 

But  even  apart  from  this  general  consideration,  we  are 
not  justified  in  speaking  of  design,  knowing,  as  we  do, 
things  only  in  the  one  form  and  condition  in  which  they 
lie  before  our  eyes,  and  having  no  conception  of  what  they 
would  look  like  if  their  condition  were  quite  different  from 
what  it  is.  In  order  to  form  a competent  judgment,  we 
ought  to  be  in  a position  to  compare  the  order  of  things  of 
this  world  with  that  of  one  quite  differently  constituted,  and 
this,  of  course,  is  an  impossibility.  But  whatever  the  ar- 
rangement of  the  world  might  be,  it  would  always  appear 
to  a certain  extent  designed,  provided  we  were  able  to  exist 
in  it.  In  fact,  this  is  so  much  the  case  that  the  most  varied 
conditions  under  varied  circumstances,  appear  designed  to 
us,  according  as  our  individuality  has  become  adapted  to 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE.  1 75 

them.  To  the  Northerner  the  cold  seems  pleasant  and  use- 
ful, and  to  the  Southerner  the  heat ; the  Arab  loves  the 
desert,  the  sailor  the  ocean,  the  huntsman  the  woods  and 
mountains,  the  agriculturist  the  fields,  the  townsman  houses 
and  men.  Thus,  to  every  one  of  these  only  that  seems 
fitting  which  is  agreeable  to  him  on  account  of  his  individual 
and  personal  tastes  or  wants,  or  which  is  beneficial  to  him 
or  in  keeping  with  his  idiosyncrasy.  Moreover  our  reason 
need  by  no  means  content  itself  with  the  existing  reality, 
lying  before  it.  For  where  is  there  an  institution  or  con- 
trivance of  nature  but  might  be  imagined  better,  or  more 
appropriate  in  one  way  or  another  ? Nay,  there  are  natural 
contrivances  of  a very  complicated  and  highly  developed 
kind,  in  regard  to  which  it  may  be  scientifically  proved  that 
gradual  development  and  adaptation  has  never  yet  imparted 
to  them  that  degree  of  perfection  which  they  would  have 
attained  had  they  been  created  with  a preconceived  view 
to  fitness.  Thus,  that  apparently  most  skilfully  designed 
organ  of  sight,  the  human  eye,  appears  to  the  outsider  as 
a marvel  of  fitness,  as  an  arrangement  for  seeing,  bespeak- 
ing the  highest  and  most  matured  wisdom  in  its  design  ; 
but  upon  its  being  examined  by  the  scientist,  there  are 
brought  to  light  a number  of  faults  and  imperfections,  such 
as  chromatic  dispersion,  spherical  aberration  arising  from 
the  imperfect  construction  of  the  lens,  astigmatism  or  im- 
perfect adaptation  for  simultaneous  vertical  and  horizontal 
vision,  springing  from  a defect  in  the  curve  of  the  cornea  ; 
besides  the  blind  spot,  the  shadows  cast  by  the  vessels,  the 
incomplete  transparency  of  the  media,  and  so  on.  If  a 
human  optician  were  to  supply  an  instrument  made  in  the 
same  way,  it  would,  as  Helmholtz  remarked,  be  at  once 
rejected  as  a bad  piece  of  workmanship.  The  reason  of  it 
all  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  eye  — like  all  organs  and  con- 
trivances in  the  plant  or  animal  body  — has  passed  through 
countless  gradations  of  imperfection,  by  the  gradual  ad- 
dition and  retention  of  small  improvements,  from  a simple, 
sensitive  nerve  lodged  beneath  the  skin,  to  its  ultimate  and 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


176 

highest  development,  and  even  this  highest  development  is 
by  no  means  complete  even  in  the  most  perfect  eye.  In  this 
respect,  comparative  anatomy  furnishes  us  with  the  most 
conclusive  proofs,  showing  that  the  earliest  beginnings  of 
the  organ  of  sight  in  the  lowest  animals  are  not  even  repre- 
sented by  nerves,  but  by  small  gatherings  of  red  or  violet 
pigment-cells,  to  be  found  in  the  skin  at  the  fore-part  of  the 
body.  Exactly  the  same  or  similar  things  occur  in  con- 
nection with  all  the  other  sense-organs,  which  were  origin- 
ally nothing  more  than  portions  of  the  external  skin,  through 
which  nerves  of  sensation  were  spreading,  and  which  devel- 
oped gradually,  in  the  course  of  many  millions  of  years,  by 
dint  of  practice,  division  of  labor,  adaptation  and  inheritance, 
until  they  arrived  at  their  present  degree  of  perfection.  This 
gradual  development  of  the  organs  of  sense  may  be  pursued 
even  at  this  day  through  all  its  stages  in  the  incubated  hen’s 
egg,  as  parts  of  the  outer  covering  of  the  body  or  epidermis, 
or  simple  epidermal  cells,  are  gradually  transformed  to  the 
characteristic  sense-cells.  On  the  lowest  rung  of  the  scale 
of  life,  c.  g.  in  the  protista  and  the  infusoria,  the  senses  are 
actually  at  work  without  there  being  any  special  organs  of 
sense  or  nerves.  “ These  facts,”  Haeckel  remarks,  “ prove 
most  conclusively  that  the  most  perfect  organs  of  sense  are 
not  the  factitious  production  of  a preconceived  plan  of 
creation,  but  that,  like  all  other  organs  of  the  animal  body, 
they  are  the  unconscious  product  of  natural  selection  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.”  * 

What  paramount  influence  the  mere  external  agency  of 
light  has  wrought  on  the  development  of  the  organ  of  sight 
appears  more  particularly  by  the  well-known  facts  relating 
to  the  blind  cave-animals,  which,  led  by  chance  into  the 
absolute  darkness  of  their  caves  and  being  compelled  to 
live  there,  have  gradually  lost  their  eyes,  these  having  be- 
come degraded  to  mere  rudiments.  On  the  other  hand, 
fishes  and  other  denizens  of  the  sea  have  the  larger  eyes 

* Further  details  may  be  found  in  Haeckel’s  Ueber  Ur  sprung  und  Entv/ick- 
lung  der  Sinneswerkzeuge . 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE.  177 

the  more  they  are  wont  to  live  in  the  dark  depths  of  the 
ocean,  for  in  the  struggle  for  existence  natural  selection 
must  have  favored  those  who  could  best  collect  the  sparse 
rays  of  light  by  possessing  a larger  eye. 

It  results  from  all  this  that  eyes  were  not  bestowed  upon 
us  in  order  that  we  might  see  with  them,  any  more  than  we 
have  received  feet  in  order  that  we  may  walk  with  them. 
Rather  do  we  see  and  walk  because  we  have  eyes  and  feet. 
The  function  is  not  the  origin,  but  the  result  of  the  organ. 
Sight  did  not  exist  before  the  eye,  nor  speech  before  the 
tongue,  but  the  reverse.  On  the  same  ground  we  cannot 
say  that  the  stag  and  the  doe  have  received  long  legs  in 
order  that  they  may  run  fast ; but  they  run  fast  because  they 
have  long  legs.  The  mole  has  short  spatulate  feet  for  dig- 
ging ; if  he  had  not  it  would  never  have  occurred  to  it  to 
burrow  in  the  earth.  Things  are  as  they  are  because  they 
have  so  developed  among  millionfold  mutual  frictions  and 
interactions  ; had  they  developed  or  been  able  to  develop 
otherwise,  we  should  not  have  regarded  them  as  less  fitting 
or  apposite.  Animals  in  the  North  have  a thicker  fur  than 
those  in  the  South,  and  in  winter  they  have  thicker  hair  or 
feathers  than  in  summer.  Is  it  not  more  natural  to  look 
upon  such  phenomena  as  the  necessary  result  of  external 
influences,  and  in  this  particular  instance  as  the  result  of 
thermal  conditions,  than  to  believe,  as  the  teleologist  does, 
in  a heavenly  tailor  who  sews  the  winter  and  summer  gar- 
ments of  every  animal  ? It  is,  in  point  of  fact,  a well- 
known  thing  that  in  prolonged  low  temperature  the  skin 
produces  a stronger  growth  of  hair  ; thus,  for  example,  the 
elephants  and  various  species  of  the  rhinoceros,  now  only 
found  in  tropical  countries,  are  almost  naked,  whereas  their 
antediluvian  relatives  of  the  cold  North,  the  mammoth  and 
the  woolly  rhinoceros,  were  clothed  with  long  thick  hair. 
To  this  must  be  added  the  influence  of  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence, discovered  by  Darwin,  that  is  to  say,  the  ceaseless 
mutual  competition  carried  on  by  all  organized  beings  both 
against  each  other  and  against  the  conditions  of  life,  a 


Force  and  matter. 


178 

struggle  which  resulted  and  results  in  the  permanent  pre- 
servation of  such  forms  only  as  are  distinguished  from  their 
fellows  by  some  advantage,  however  slight  it  may  be  at 
first,  and  which  hand  down  this  advantage  to  their  young 
for  gradual  further  development.  Thus  the  protective  colors 
of  many  animals,  as  the  green  of  insects,  the  white  of  the 
ptarmigan,  the  brown  of  animals  living  on  the  bark  of  trees, 
the  grey  hue,  resembling  sand,  of  desert  animals,  and  so 
on,  are  the  result  of  selection  in  the  struggle  for  existence, 
for  while  animals  of  other  colors  soon  succumbed  to  their 
enemies,  these  survived  and  transmitted  their  favorable  pe- 
culiarities to  their  young.  Again,  in  cold  countries,  animals 
with  a thick  fur  are  more  likely  to  survive  than  those  with 
thin  ; they  transmit  this  peculiarity  to  their  young,  and  it 
increases  from  generation  to  generation,  thus  giving  them 
the  greatest  advantage  and  to  the  superficial  observer  the 
impression  of  a divine  or  intentional  contrivance,  whereas 
a more  thorough  observation  shows  that  these  are  but  the 
natural  effects  of  natural  causes.  Therefore,  those  things 
that  now  exist  in  the  world  are  but  the  remains  of  an  infinite 
number  of  beginnings  and  of  countless  processes  of  devel- 
opment. We  should  not  omit  to  notice  in  connection  with 
this  that  the  views  so  admirably  put  forth  by  Darwin  were 
known  long  since  to  the  most  ancient  Greek  philosophers, 
and  that  the  Greek  philosopher  Empedocles  (450  B.  C.)  who 
is  now  often  termed  the  ancestor  of  the  Darwinian  theory, 
taught  with  marvelous  ingenuity  that  in  the  moulding  of 
matter  into  form  many  irregular  forms  may  have  previously 
existed,  which  were  partly  unable  to  maintain  themselves, 
and  but  gradually,  as  they  became  more  advantageously 
moulded  and  thereby  imbued  with  more  vitality,  attained  a 
fitting  constitution. 

These  considerations  are  also  calculated  to  refute  the  ob- 
jection that  the  non-teleological  view  of  the  world  leads  us 
to  mere  chance , whereas  chance  could  never  produce  suit- 
able forms.  As  far  back  as  two  thousand  years  ago,  Cicero 
contended  in  opposition  to  the  pantheistic  philosophers  of 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE.  179 

his  time  : ‘ ‘ Let  any  one  toss  up  a number  of  letters  ever  so 
many  times,  they  will  never  form  a poem,  such  as  the  Iliad 
or  the  Odyssey.' ’ Of  course  they  will  not  — for  such  a con- 
tingency would  be  entirely  out  of  the  question,  and  would 
be  like  a single  prize  among  countless  blanks.  But  a chance 
of  this  kind  does  not  occur  in  Nature,  in  which  everything 
proceeds  in  final  resort  in  a natural  and  regular  manner. 
What  we  still  designate  as  chance,  merely  depends  on  a 
concatenation  of  circumstances,  the  internal  connection  and 
final  causes  of  which  we  have  as  yet  been  unable  to  unravel. 
“To  chance,’’  says  the  famous  Systeme  de  la  Nature,  ‘ ‘ we 
ascribe  those  effects  of  which  we  cannot  trace  the  connection 
with  their  causes. — Order  and  disorder  are  not  in  Nature.” 
Therefore,  the  alternative  ‘ 1 God  or  Chance  ’ ’ which  is  so 
often  presented  to  us  by  teleologists,  has  no  real  existence. 
There  is  a third  course,  and  this  is  the  gradual  evolution  of 
what  is  suitable  in  the  natural  course  of  things  by  the  already 
described  processes  of  selection,  adaptation,  etc.  Under  ex- 
isting natural  conditions,  quite  an  incommensurable  number 
of  fitting  mechanisms,  forms  and  contrivances,  may  be  im- 
agined or  realized,  of  which  some  actually  spring  into  ex- 
istence, although  it  does  not  follow  that  they  must  be  the 
most  fitting  that  could  be  conceived.  Sufficient  if  they  be 
fitting  enough  to  be  able  to  exist  under  certain  conditions. 
This  view  thoroughly  coincides  with  the  actual  facts  of  the 
matter  and  with  the  constantly  changing  phenomena  and 
conditions,  as  we  find  them  in  the  natural  history  of  the 
earth  and  of  the  universe.  Let  people  leave  off,  then, 
meeting  the  arguments  of  the  defenders  of  the  existence  of 
natural  laws  with  the  weak  and  insipid  commonplaces  about 
chance  or  about  the  tossing-up  of  letters  ; such  objections 
only  bespeak  either  want  of  knowledge  or  want  of  reflection. 

If,  after  all  this,  it  becomes  perfectly  obvious  that  Nature 
does  not  act  from  a conscious  design  or  plan,  but  obeys  a 
blind  necessity,  it  is  no  less  self-evident  that,  working  as 
she  does,  she  necessarily  calls  into  life  and  being  a number 
of  things  which  must  appear  to  us — if  we  judge  only  by  the 


I So 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


standard  of  fitness  — as  utterly  perverse,  useless,  absurd  and 
imperfect.  In  fact,  if  once  we  begin  to  look  at  Nature  from 
the  point  of  view  of  fitness,  it  is  easy  not  only  to  discover 
numbers  of  such  aimless  and  useless  things,  absurdities 
and  imperfections,  but  also  to  demonstrate  that  Nature, 
when  interrupted  in  her  blind  action  by  external  or  internal 
difficulties,  becomes  guilty  of  the  most  startling  blunders 
and  perversities.  She  is  oftentimes  unable  to  conquer  the 
smallest  obstacle  in  her  path,  or  to  smooth  it  away  in  a 
befitting  manner,  and  in  the  course  of  her  utterly  involun- 
tary action  she  entangles  herself  every  moment  in  quite 
unnecessary  or  insoluble  difficulties  and  perplexities,  which 
would  inevitably  be  steered  clear  of  by  a conscious  reason, 
or  even  by  an  unconscious  activity  guided  and  determined 
by  considerations  of  fitness. 

Above  all,  no  one  can  deny  that  Nature,  in  her  blind 
creative  impulse,  has  given  birth  to  a number  of  beings  and 
things  which  cannot  be  regarded  as  designed  for  their  own 
sake,  and  which  rather  destroy  than  promote  the  natural 
order  of  things  and  the  good  of  the  whole.  Upon  this 
ground,  the  existence  of  mischievous  animals  and  plants  has 
always  been  a thorn  in  the  flesh  of  the  teleologists  and  the 
advocates  of  a religious  conception  of  the  world,  who  have 
tried  in  every  imaginable  way  to  explain  the  raison  d'etre 
of  these  destructive  beings.  In  this  they  have  utterly  failed, 
as  proved  by  the  results  of  those  religious  systems  in  which 
the  Fall,  or  original  sin,  is  represented  as  the  cause  of  the 
anomaly  alluded  to.  According  to  the  theologians  Meyer 
and  Stilling  ( Blatter  fur  holier  e Wahrheit),  injurious  reptiles 
and  mischievous  insects  are  the  result  of  the  curse  which 
smote  the  earth  and  its  inhabitants,  and  in  the  monstrous 
form  and  appearance  of  many  of  them  we  behold  to  some 
extent  the  image  of  sin  and  destruction  ! In  keeping  with 
this  it  is  alleged  that  they  are  a later  creation,  and  not 
part  of  the  original  one,  because  their  very  existence  is 
bound  up  with  the  destruction  of  vegetable  and  animal 
matter  ! 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE.  l8l 

In  old  German  paganism  these  animals  were  regarded 
as  wicked  elves,  from  whom  sprang  all  diseases,  and  who 
owed  their  origin  to  the  worship  of  the  demons  on  May- 
night. 

These  curious  attempts  at  an  explanation  show  the  utter 
inability  of  man  to  explain  on  ground  of  usefulness  the  ex- 
istence of  these  mischievous,  harmful  and  disgusting  crea- 
tures, or  to  bring  them  into  accord  with  the  working  of  a 
benevolent  and  beneficent  Providence.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  know  that  perfectly  harmless  and  very  useful  animals 
have  died  out  or  are  in  course  of  becoming  extinct,  without 
Nature  finding  any  means  of  preserving  their  existence. 
Yet  mischievous  creatures,  such  as  field-mice,  are  gifted 
with  such  fertility  that  their  extinction  is  not  within  the 
range  of  possibility.  There  is  scarcely  any  limit  to  the  pro- 
lific power  of  those  microscopic  organisms  which  are  the 
causes  of  so  many  terrible  diseases,  and  which  inflict  on 
man  such  incalculable  injury,  sometimes  directly,  and  some- 
times by  the  destruction  of  useful  plants.  Locusts  and 
migratory  pigeons  form  flocks  which  darken  the  sky,  and 
which  spread  ruin,  death  and  famine  over  the  unhappy 
lands  on  which  they  rest  from  their  flight. 

“ He  who  only  seeks  wisdom,  design  and  appropriateness 
in  Nature,”  says  Professor  Giebel , “ had  better  turn  to  the 
natural  history  of  the  tape-worm,  to  try  his  ingenuity  upon. 
The  entire  object  of  its  life  consists  in  the  production  of 
eggs  capable  of  development,  and  cannot  be  attained  except 
through  the  sufferings  of  other  creatures  ; millions  of  eggs 
perish  aimlessly  ; some  are  developed,  and  the  embryo 
finally  becomes  evaginated  and  grows  into  a sucking  and 
reproductive  scolex,  the  young  of  which  produce  eggs 
and  putrify  in  the  excreta  of  other  beings.  Here  we  have 
nothing  of  beauty,  design  or  wisdom,  in  the  ordinary 
human  construction  of  the  terms.” 

Whence  — we  may  fairly  ask  of  the  teleologist  — come 
the  hosts  of  diseases  and  of  physical  evils  ? Why  should 
Nature  inflict  such  frightful  cruelties  and  horrors,  on  her 


182 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


own  children  and  creatures,  daily  and  hourly,  by  means  of 
floods,  earthquakes,  lightning,  fire,  hail,  volcanoes,  storms, 
etc.  ? Why  is  the  existence  of  millions  of  creatures  possible 
only  by  their  destroying  other  millions  of  their  fellow-crea- 
tures or  making  them  suffer  in  the  most  cruel  way  imagin- 
able ? Can  it  have  been  divine  goodness  and  mercy  which 
imparted  cruelty  to  the  cat  and  the  spider,  and  endowed 
man  himself,  the  so-called  crown  of  creation,  with  a nature 
that  makes  him  capable  of  practicing  every  description 
of  the  most  dastardly  brutality  and  atrocity  on  his  own 
race  ? 

Of  course,  theologians  lay  the  flattering  unction  to  their 
souls  that  all  this  is  only  the  result  of  the  Fall,  and  has 
been  factitiously  brought  into  an  originally  pure  and  uncor- 
rupt Nature  by  the  moral  ruin  of  mankind.  They  do  not 
know,  or  do  not  want  to  know,  that  natural  laws  have  been 
the  same  at  all  times,  and  that  palaeontology  can  bring 
forward  countless  and  irrefutable  instances  of  bones  of  men 
and  animals  having  been  injured  by  disease,  though  be- 
longing to  a period  prior  to  the  supposed  date  of  the 
original  sin.  Disease  is  as  old  as  organic  life,  as  evidenced 
moreover  by  internal  causes,  and  a Paradise  that  is  not 
reached  by  evils  and  disease  is,  to  the  clear  eye  of  the 
scientific  investigator,  nothing  more  than  one  of  the  myths 
hatched  by  the  childish  fancies  of  nations,  the  outcome  of 
the  unsatisfied  longing  of  the  human  mind  for  a better  state 
of  things. 

The  colors  of  flowers,  the  teleologist  is  wont  to  say,  exist 
to  delight  the  eyes  of  man.  But  how  long  did  flowers 
blossom  without  being  seen  by  a human  eye,  and  how 
many  are  there  that  bloom  at  this  day  in  inaccessible  spots, 
or  at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean  where  no  eye  but  that  of  the 
diver  can  light  upon  them  ? Moreover,  it  is  in  evidence 
that  fully  one  half  of  all  the  plants  in  Creation  possess  no 
beautiful,  many-colored  blossoms  ; and  Darwin,  by  his 
investigations,  arrived  at  the  remarkable  conclusion  that 
flowers  as  a rule  are  only  gaily-colored  in  order  to  attract 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE.  183 

the  insects  which  aid  their  fertilization,  while  those  flowers 
which  are  fertilized  by  the  wind  are  never  bright-colored. 
Therefore  no  flower  would  be  endowed  with  a beautiful 
color,  if  such  color  were  not  beneficial  to  the  flower  itself 
and  had  not  been  evolved,  by  way  of  predilection,  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  This  calls  to  our  mind  the  fact  that 
very  many  flowers  are  so  badly  contrived  that  the  conditio 
sine  qua  non  of  their  fertility,  i.  e.  the  union  of  pollen  and 
ovule,  is  either  prevented  or  rendered  difficult  in  every  pos- 
sible way,  and  that  their  propagation  is  rendered  possible 
by  mere  fortuitous  circumstances,  such  as  rain,  wind,  insects, 
etc.  Why  is  this?  There  are  so  many  aimless  or  useless 
parts  and  organs  in  the  vegetable  world,  that  the  famous 
botanist  Schleiden  was  led  to  say : ‘ ‘ The  boldest  imagin- 
ation is  paralyzed  in  the  end,  in  seeking  any  definite  con- 
ception of  design  in  the  manifold  forms  and  configurations 
of  plants.” 

The  same  thing  holds  good  of  animals  and  of  men,  in 
whose  physical  structure  numerous  aimless  contrivances  and 
organs,  permanent  or  temporary,  may  be  shown  to  exist. 
No  one  can  tell  the  use  of  the  tail  of  the  human  embryo,  or 
of  the  forms  of  foetal  transition,  or  of  the  rudiments  of  op- 
posite sexes  in  male  and  female  mammals,  such  as  the  male 
mammary  glands,  or  of  the  so-called  appendix  vermiformis, 
or  the  muscles  of  the  ear,  or  the  inside  of  the  foot,  or  the 
tonsils,  or  the  thymus,  or  the  semilunar  of  the  eye  in  man, 
or  the  clavicle  of  the  cat,  or  the  wings  of  some  birds  which 
are  useless  for  flying  purposes,  or  the  teeth  of  the  whale, 
etc.,  etc.  These  belong  chiefly  to  the  great  class  of  rudi- 
mentary or  degraded  organs,  which  are  explicable  by  the 
theory  of  descent,  but  which  offer  an  insoluble  problem  to 
the  teleological  conception  of  the  world  and  to  the  theory 
of  creation,  being,  as  they  are,  not  only  useless  and  aimless, 
but  in  some  cases  actually  injurious.  “ If  everything  that 
is  fit  in  this  world  had  been  created  by  a rational  spirit,  the 
long  persistence  of  rudimentary  organs  would  be  incon- 
ceivable ; for  God,  who  was  able  to  create  the  whole  uni- 


184 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


verse  in  six  days,  would  surely  have  been  able,  in  an  equal 
space  of  time,  to  get  rid  of  an  organ  which  had  become 
useless.  ’ ’ (G.  A.  Schneider.)  K.  Vogt  states  that  there  are 

animals  which  may  be  set  down  as  complete  hermaphro- 
dites, that  is  to  say,  possessing  perfectly  developed  organs 
of  both  sexes,  and  yet  incapable  of  self-fertilization  ; the 
rule  being  that  two  individuals  are  necessary  for  repro- 
duction, while  self-fertilization  is  the  exception.  “What 
end,”  he  pertinently  adds,  “does  such  a contrivance  sub- 
serve?’’ Again,  why  must  some  aquatic  birds  remain 
content  with  a small  extension  between  their  claws,  while 
animals  which  never  swim  are  furnished  with  skin  between 
their  toes?  And  what  is  the  good  of  the  existence  of 
thousands  of  drones  in  the  realm  of  bees,  which  only  seem 
to  live  in  order  that  they  may  be  killed  by  their  laboring 
sisters?  What  is  the  use  of  the  large  clumsy  beak  of  the 
Brazilian  toucan,  which  makes  it  impossible  for  the  bird  to 
take  its  food  directly,  compelling  it,  as  it  does,  to  throw  it 
up  into  the  air  and  then  to  catch  it  deftly  with  its  open 
beak  near  the  root,  so  as  to  be  able  to  bite  or  swallow  it? 
The  sting  of  the  bee  or  the  wasp,  which,  according  to  the 
teleological  view,  was  given  to  these  creatures  for  their  de- 
fence, serves  as  a rule,  when  used,  to  bring  about  the  death 
of  its  owner  ! The  natural  history  of  insects,  above  all, 
yields  so  many  facts  that  go  against  the  theory  of  a de- 
sign, that  Professor  Graber  ( Die  Insekten , Munich,  1879, 
II,  p 569)  says:  “In  the  course  of  the  development  of 
insects  we  not  only  meet  with  a number  of  processes  which, 
to  put  it  mildly,  can  scarcely  serve  to  illustrate  the  idea  of 
design  ; but  there  are  also  numerous  structures  and  organs 
which  may,  with  absolute  certainty,  be  pointed  to  as  per- 
fectly useless.’’  And  again  (p.  45):  “ The  entire  morphology 
of  insects  is  a network  of  clear  and  circumstantial  evidence 
against  the  notion  of  a predestined  and  previously  intended 
fitness  of  the  organ.” 

The  fertility  of  many  animals  is  so  great  that  if  they  were 
left  to  themselves,  they  would  in  a few  years  crowd  the  seas 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE.  185 

and  cover  the  land  right  up  to  the  housetops.*  What  is 
the  object  of  such  an  arrangement,  seeing  that  there  is 
neither  space  nor  food  enough  for  such  crowds  of  animals? 
Or  is  it  consistent  with  the  idea  of  a creative  spirit  that 
such  countless  germs  or  complete  creatures  should  merely 
be  created  for  the  purpose  of  immediately  perishing  again 
in  the  pitiless  struggle  for  existence?  Even  the  human 
race,  despite  its  slow  rate  of  progression,  would,  but  for 
the  fact  of  innumerable  lives  coming  to  a premature  end, 
double  its  numbers  in  a quarter  of  a century,  although  the 
earth  has  neither  space  nor  food  enough  for  such  multi- 
tudes of  human  beings. 

One  of  the  strongest  arguments  against  the  pretended  de- 
sign in  the  actions  of  Nature  is  afforded  by  malformations 
and  monstrosities.  With  what  object  did  Nature  allow  a 
mammary  gland  to  grow  on  the  shoulder  of  a man  thirty- 
four  years  of  age,  as  recorded  by  Dr.  Klob  of  Vienna  ? or 
give  a woman  three  well-developed  breasts,  as  seen  by  Dr. 
S.  Johns 07i,  ( Lancet , and  Gazette  des  Hopitaux,  1861,  Nr. 
81)?  or  give  grown  men  four  nipples  instead  of  the  normal 
two  — a case  that  has  been  observed  twice  by  the  author  in 
his  own  practice,  and  of  which  one  hundred  and  five  ex- 
amples were  collected  in  thirteen  years  by  Professor  Leich- 
tenstern  of  Tubingen  ? (Virchow’s  Archiv  fur pathol.  Ana- 
tomie  und  Physiologic,  Vol.  3,  Part  II.)  With  regard  to 
monstrosities,  the  unsophisticated  human  mind  has  been 
so  little  able  to  reconcile  them  with  belief  in  a benevolent 

* The  bactaria,  which  are  microscopic  organisms  of  the  minutest  kind,  mul- 
tiply by  the  simple  binary  division  of  their  bodies,  in  such  a manner  that  from 
one  bacterium  two  new  creatures  are  formed  in  one  hour,  four  in  two  hours, 
eight  in  three  hours,  sixteen  in  four  hours,  and  so  on.  Assuming  this  process 
simply  to  go  on,  then,  according  to  Professor  F.  Cohn’s  calculation,  there  would 
be  within  three  days  as  many  as  forty-seven  trillions  of  bacteria  in  existence, 
and  within  five  days  the  creatures  evolved  from  one  germ  would  completely 
fill  the  whole  nine  hundred  and  twenty-eight  cubic  miles  of  the  ocean  ! Yet,  as 
already  stated  in  an  earlier  chapter,  these  creatures  are  so  tiny  that  six  hundred 
and  thirty-three  millions  of  them  occupy  but  one  cubic  millimeter,  and  six  hun- 
dred and  thirty-six  milliards  of  them  only  weigh  a gramme.  The  queen  bee 
can  produce  one  hundred  thousand,  the  female  termite  twelve  million  descend- 
ants every  year ; and  even  less  prolific  insects,  increasing  in  geometrical  pro- 
gression, would  soon  fill  the  world  with  the  progeny  of  a single  individual. 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


186 

creator,  that  they  were  formerly  regarded  as  a sign  of  the 
wrath  of  the  gods,  and  even  at  this  day  uneducated  people 
often  look  upon  them  as  a punishment  from  heaven.  The 
author  of  this  book  saw  in  a collection  of  a veterinary 
surgeon  a new-born  kid,  which  was  perfectly  developed  in 
every  part,  except  that  it  had  coyne  into  the  world  without  a 
head  ! Professor  Depaul  presented  to  the  French  Academy 
a human  foetus  without  a head  and  without  limbs,  with  breast 
and  abdomen  imperfectly  formed,  and  the  place  of  the  head 
on  the  trunk  represented  by  a tuft  of  hair.  This  misshapen 
creature  grew  in  a corner  of  the  decidua.  ( Compt . rendus 
de  1' Academie  des  Sciences , March,  1875.)  From  a teleo- 
logical point  of  view,  is  there  any  more  glaring  absurdity 
to  be  imagined  ? Professor  Lotze  of  Gottingen  surpasses 
himself  when  he  says  in  speaking  of  monstrosities:  “If 
the  brain  is  wanting  in  a foetus,  it  would  be  only  rational  in 
a power  with  a free  choice  to  suspend  its  action,  as  this 
want  cannot  be  compensated.  But  since  the  formative  forces 
carry  on  their  work  in  order  that  a creature  so  purposeless 
and  wretched,  and  so  opposed  to  the  idea  of  generation, 
may  exist  for  a time,  this  appears  to  us  to  be  a striking 
proof  of  the  fact  of  the  design  of  the  final  result  depending 
on  the  disposition  of  purely  mechanical  and  determined 
forces,  the  action  of  which,  once  begun,  proceeds  straight 
on  without  thought  and  without  reflection  according  to  the 
law  of  inertia,  as  long  as  no  obstacle  happens  to  stand  in 
its  way,’’  etc. 

This  is  plain  speaking,  and  by  the  side  of  it,  it  seems 
scarcely  credible  that  the  same  author  should  elsewhere 
contend  that  “ Nature,  distrustful  of  the  inventive  power  of 
the  mind,  has  furnished  the  body  with  certain  mechanical 
contrivances,”  the  effect  of  which  is,  e.g.,  that  a foreign 
body  should  be  expelled  from  the  trachea  by  coughing.  If 
i'c  were  possible  that  such  philosophical  views,  as  ascribing 
distrust  to  Nature,  should  be  generally  accepted,  there 
would  be  an  end  to  every  real  investigation  into  Nature, 
and  nothing  would  remain  but  passive  faith.  That  the 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE.  187 

same  author,  who  is  actually  regarded  as  an  authority , 
should  utter,  in  one  breath,  two  theorems  that  are  so 
diametrically  at  variance  with  each  other,  proves  the  philo- 
sophical confusion  and  inconsistency  of  our  time.*  If 
Nature,  according  to  Lotze,  had  reason  to  distrust  the 
inventive  faculty  of  the  mind,  she  would  have  had  infinite 
opportunities  of  making  preventive  provision  for  certain 
contingencies  ; she  might  have  arranged  things  in  such  a 
way  that  bullets  should  rebound  from  the  body,  and  that 
swords  should  hit  without  cutting.  A foreign  body  in  the 
trachea  may  perhaps  be  ejected  by  coughing,  but  a foreign 
body  in  the  sesophagus  may  bring  about  suffocation  by 
causing  excessive  nervous  irritation  at  the  top  of  the  trachea. 
What  a preposterous  arrangement  ! and  yet  there  is  no 
trace  of  distrust  towards  the  inventive  faculty  of  the  mind 
which  has  invented  pincers  and  dungeons.  Every  day  and 
every  hour  the  physician  has  opportunities  of  convincing 
himself  of  the  helplessness  of  Nature,  among  diseases, 
wounds,  miscarriages, etc.,  and  of  her  often  unsuitable,  per- 
verse or  unsuccessful  efforts  to  heal.  There  would  indeed 
be  no  need  of  physicians  if  Nature  were  to  act  with  a set 
purpose.  Inflammation,  gangrene,  mortification,  wasting, 
and  similar  processes  are  chosen  by  nature  and  are  fatal, 
when  she  might  have  attained  the  object  by  simpler  means 
and  might  have  effected  a cure.  Is  it  fitting  that  a foetus 
should  fix  itself  and  be  developed  outside  the  uterus,  the 
place  assigned  to  it  by  nature  ? yet  such  cases  of  extra- 
uterine  pregnancy  occur  frequently  enough,  and  result  in 
the  painful  death  of  the  mother  ; worse  still,  that  in  such 
cases  of  extra-uterine  pregnancy,  labor- pains,  that  is  efforts 
to  expel  the  child  from  the  uterus,  should  set  in  at  the 
normal  period,  while  there  is  really  nothing  to  be  expelled  ? 
There  is  no  healing  power  in  Nature,  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  phrase  is  generally  used,  any  more  than  there  is  a vital 

* Karl  Vogt  in  his  well-known  work,  Kohlerglaube  und  Wissenschaft,  calls 
Herr  Lotze  a “speculating  Struwwelpeter,”  an  epithet  that  could  scarcely  have 
been  better  chosen. 


i88 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


power  in  it.  In  pursuing  the  direction  once  imposed  on  it 
by  definite  natural  formulae,  the  organism  often  adjusts 
morbid  disturbances  in  its  further  development.  At  other 
times  it  does  exactly  the  contrary,  and  following  its  neces- 
sary and  determined  activity  it  entangles  itself  in  a number 
of  insoluble  and  perfectly  unnecessary  difficulties.  The 
existence  of  definite  specifics  against  specific  diseases  is 
often  quoted  as  a striking  proof  of  the  accuracy  of  the 
teleological  conception  of  the  world.  But  there  are  no  such 
definite  specifics  that  heal  certain  definite  diseases  with  cer- 
tainty under  all  circumstances,  and  which  might  therefore 
be  regarded  as  designed  for  the  curing  of  such  diseases. 
All  rational  physicians  now  deny  the  existence  of  so-called 
specific  remedies  in  the  sense  alluded  to  ; on  the  contrary, 
they  hold  that  the  action  of  a medicine  does  not  consist 
in  a specific  neutralization  of  the  disease,  but  must  be 
explained  in  quite  another  way  as  depending  chiefly  on 
accidental  circumstances,  reposing  on  a far-reaching  causal 
nexus  of  intermingled  conditions.  Hence  we  must  abandon 
the  idea  that  Nature  has  allowed  certain  herbs  to  grow  as 
remedies  for  certain  diseases — a view  that  imputes  to  the 
creator  an  utter  absurdity,  for  it  implies  that  he  created  an 
evil  with  its  antidote,  instead  of  leaving  both  uncreated. 

To  return  once  more  to  the  subject  of  monstrosities, 
we  must  note  that  such  can  be  artificially  produced,  by 
injuring  either  the  ovum  or  the  foetus.  Nature  has  no 
means  of  meeting  this  attack  and  of  remedying  this  injury ; 
on  the  contrary,  she  obeys  the  fortuitous  impulse,  and 
moulding  in  the  false  direction  brings  forth — a monstrosity. 
Is  it  possible  not  to  recognize  that  here  we  have  nought 
before  us  but  factitious  and  merely  mechanical  processes  ? 
Can  the  idea  of  a conscious  creator,  ruling  matter  with  a 
purpose,  be  reconciled  with  such  phenomena  ? Is  it  pos- 
sible that  in  its  action  of  producing  fitting  formations,  the 
forming  hand  of  the  creator  can  be  arrested  or  turned  in  a 
wrong  direction  by  the  capricious  finger  of  man  ? It  does 
not  matter  whether  man  interferes  with  the  working  of  such 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE.  1 8$ 

a hand  at  an  earlier  or  at  a later  stage ; nothing  is  gained 
by  assuming  that  Nature  has  only  received  from  outside  an 
original  impulse  towards  the  formation  of  designed  works, 
but  accomplishes  these  works  by  mechanical  means.  For 
the  designed  impulse  must  necessarily  involve  the  designed 
result.  And  where  shall  we  seek  this  designed  impulse, 
since  the  natural  circumstances  under  which  the  natural 
beings  arise  are  fully  known  to  us,  and  since  we  know  that 
traces  of  a creative  force  external  to  the  natural  order  of 
things  are  to  be  found  nowhere  ? 

Nature  accomplishes  many  alleged  objects  in  a clumsy, 
roundabout  fashion,  while  it  cannot  be  denied  that  if  it  had 
only  been  a question  of  attaining  these  objects,  the  result 
might  have  been  obtained  in  a very  much  easier  and  simpler 
way.  The  greatest  pyramids  of  Egypt  and  other  gigantic 
monuments  are  built  from  stones  which  owe  their  existence 
to  the  calcareous  shells  of  minute  organisms.  The  free- 
stone of  which  nearly  all  Paris  is  built,  consists  of  the 
shells  of  small  animals,  of  microscopically  minute  creatures 
belonging  to  the  foraminiferae,  of  whice  some  two  hundred 
millions  are  contained  in  one  cubic  foot.  The  time  neces- 
sary for  the  formation  of  these  stones  must  be  reckoned  by 
myriads  of  years  ; they  are  now  useful  to  man  and  appear 
to  him  to  be  a proof  of  the  care  of  a designing  nature.  But 
the  disproportion  between  the  means  and  the  end  stands 
out  in  this  instance  in  startling  clearness.  Such  formations, 
in  which  the  product  of  the  silent  working  of  many  thou- 
sands of  years  appears  suddenly  before  our  eyes,  seem  to 
the  ordinary  mind  marvelous,  supernatural  and  factitious, 
but  the  investigator’s  eye  sees  in  them  nought  but  the  slow, 
necessary  cycle  of  Nature,  which  is  complete  in  itself. 

Man  is  wont  to  look  upon  himself  as  the  culminating 
point  of  creation,  and  to  consider  the  earth,  with  all  that 
lives  and  moves  therein,  as  created  by  a beneficent  power 
for  his  use  and  dwelling.  A glance  at  the  history  of  the 
earth  and  the  geographical  distribution  of  the  human  race 
might  teach  him  rather  more  modesty.  How  long  did  the 


FORCE  AND  MATTEk. 


190 

earth  exist  without  him  ! how  long  did  all  the  beauties  of 
sky  and  earth  shine  without  there  being  a creature  gifted 
with  reason,  to  behold  and  admire  them  ! Why  should  all 
those  endless  pre-human  ages  have  rolled  away,  if  man  were 
actually  the  be-all  and  the  end-all  of  creation?  “Man,” 
says  Helmholtz , ‘ ' is  wont  to  measure  the  greatness  and 
wisdom  of  the  Universe  by  the  duration  and  advantage  it 
promises  to  his  own  race  ; but  the  past  history  of  the  globe 
in  itself  shows  how  brief  a spell  in  its  duration  is  the  exist- 
ence of  the  human  race.”  But  not  only  is  his  existence  on 
the  earth  limited  in  time,  but  so  also  is  his  distribution  in 
proportion  to  the  extent  of  the  earth’s  surface,  of  which 
only  a comparatively  small  part  may  be  turned  into  fairly 
comfortable  dwelling-places.  By  far  the  greatest  part  of 
the  earth’s  surface  consists  of  deserts  of  water,  sand  and 
ice.  Two-thirds  of  it  are  covered  with  water,  and  of  the 
remaining  third  some  parts  only  are  suited  for  men  to  dwell 
in.  Even  these  as  a rule  cannot  be  inhabited  without  toil- 
some cultivation  and  a permanent  ruinous  struggle  against 
unfavorable  natural  conditions  and  against  hunger,  disease, 
climate,  wild  beasts,  etc.  Why  should  so  many  wasted  sun- 
beams brood  daily  over  the  huge  sandy  solitudes  of  Africa, 
while  the  poor  and  miserable  men  of  the  Polar  regions  are 
pining  away  in  semi-darkness  and  everlasting  cold  ? Why 
should  there  be  drought  in  one  place,  and  inundations 
in  another  ? why  famine  in  one  and  super-abundance  in 
another  ? why  fertility  here,  and  barrenness  there  ? Why 
should  frost,  rain,  vermin,  the  scorching  heat  of  the  sun 
and  other  similar  agencies  destroy  whatever  man,  struggling 
for  dear  life,  imagines  that  he  has  wrung  from  the  elements 
by  gigantic  exertions  and  superhuman  efforts  ? Must  not 
he  be  actually  bereft  of  his  senses  who  seriously  contends 
that  the  earth  has  been  fitted  up  by  an  all-wise  and  all- 
merciful  providence  as  a becoming  dwelling-place  for  man? 
Only  by  the  uttermost  exertion  of  his  physical  and  mental 
faculties  is  man  enabled  to  eke  out  a bare  existence  on 
earth,  jeopardized  all  the  while  by  thousands  of  dangers. 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE.  191 

And  these  faculties  of  his  were  not  betsowed  on  him  by  a 
benevolent  creator,  but  are  the  final  result  of  that  slow  and 
toilsome  evolution  by  natural  means,  which  has  been  de- 
scribed in  an  earlier  chapter. 

Let  us  see  what  view  was  taken  of  these  things  by  the 
unsophisticated  mind  of  an  adept  of  the  most  free-thinking 
and  most  widely  diffused  religious  system  in  the  world, 
which  is  Buddhism.  When  a Christian  missionary  said  to 
the  late  king  of  Siam,  Maha  Moughut , who  himself  wrote 
on  theology,  that  the  Most  High  let  fall  the  rain  in  order 
that  men  might  cultivate  their  fields,  he  answered:  “But 
the  rain  falls  irregularly  ; in  some  places  there  is  too  much 
of  it,  and  in  others  too  little.  A great  part  of  it  falls  into  the 
sea  and  on  mountain  ranges.  Sometimes  the  water  carries 
away  towns,  while  at  other  times  there  is  not  even  enough 
to  make  rice  grow.  Many  parts  of  the  earth  are  utterly 
barren  and  unfitted  for  the  support  of  human  life.”  Upon 
being  told  that  God  had  created  the  earth  for  man  and 
man’s  good,  he  pointed  out  that  there  were  hidden  reefs 
on  which  ships  foundered,  and  fiery  mountains  which  only 
brought  destruction  on  man.  He  spoke  of  diseases  and 
epidemics,  and  hearing  that  these  were  intended  by  God  to 
punish  men  for  their  sins,  he  replied  that  epidemics  were 
caused  by  foul  and  poisonous  air,  and  that  the  rich  could 
escape  from  the  punishment  by  leaving  the  infected  places. 
The  Buddhist  sage  could  not  conceive  why  the  Most  High 
should  have  human  qualities  and  passions,  nor  why  he 
should  only  reveal  himself  to  a privileged  few  ; nor  why 
error  and  false  doctrines  should  exist  ; nor  how  each  human 
germ  could  be  transformed  into  a never-dying  creature? 
When  he  was  told  that  woman  was  God’s  second  creation 
and  his  master-piece,  he  answered:  “ Then  hold  her  in 
honor  and  not  in  subjection .’  ’ ‘ ‘ Buddha,  ’ ’ he  said,  ‘ ‘ taught 
very  different  things  altogether,  and  sought  to  make  men 
happy  and  wise  on  earth,  instead  of  referring  them  to  a 
fantastic  world  to  come.” 

Let  man  only  take  counsel  with  himself  and  inquire 


ig2 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


whether,  if  God  created  him  with  a view  to  happiness, 
well-being  and  knowledge,  he  might  not  have  formed  him 
in  a far  more  perfect  and  suitable  fashion  ! Why  should 
not  man  have  four  eyes,  one  for  each  of  the  four  sides  of 
the  body,  instead  of  the  two  with  their  limited  range? 
Why  cannot  he  fly  like  the  birds  ? Why  has  he  not  the 
swift  legs  of  the  stag,  and  the  muscular  strength  of  the 
lion?  Why  cannot  he  live  on  air,  instead  of  working  the 
greatest  part  of  his  life  tied  to  the  ground,  merely  to  satisfy 
the  insatiable  cravings  of  his  stomach  ? Why  has  he  no 
more  than  five  senses?  and  why  can  he  not  perceive  the 
phenomena  of  electricity  and  magnetism  by  means  of  a 
special  sense,  the  same  as  he  does  those  of  light  and  heat  ? 
Why  is  his  knowledge  so  very  circumscribed  ? and  why  is 
his  life  so  short,  and  his  intellectual  capacity  so  limited  ? 
Why  do  thousands  upon  thousands  of  natural  obstacles 
stand  in  the  way  of  the  free  working  of  his  powers?  Why 
is  he  left  a prey  to  tyranny,  malice  and  every  kind  of  in- 
justice? Nobody  can  satisfactorily  answer  these  questions 
from  the  teleological  or  theological  standpoint,  whereas 
they  meet  with  the  most  plausible  solutions  when  looked  at 
from  the  point  of  view  of  a natural  order  of  things,  pro- 
ceeding from  a gradual  and  spontaneous  evolution. 

Modern  science  (see  Helmholtz : Ueber  die  Wechselwir- 
kung  der  Naturkrafte , 1854,  and  the  writings  of  Clausius , 
Thomson , Tart , Stewart , and  others)  has  calculated,  or  is 
supposed  to  have  calculated,  that  as  there  was  once  a period 
in  which  the  earth  was  without  organic  life,  so  there  must 
and  shall  appear  also  in  a future  which,  so  far  as  human 
conception  goes,  is  as  yet  infinitely  and  immeasurably  re- 
mote, a period  in  which  the  present  forces  of  Nature  will 
become  exhausted  and  be  consigned  to  temporary  inactivity, 
through  the  constant  loss  of  heat  and  the  gradual  equilibrium 
of  temperature  ; causing  everything  that  lives  on  earth  to 
return  to  night,  to  death  and  oblivion.  On  astronomical 
grounds  also  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  just  as  our  whole 
planetary  system  originated  in  time,  it  must  necessarily 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE.  193 

perish  within  a definite  period,  however  remote  that  period 
may  be  ; for  the  sun,  the  source  of  all  terrestrial  force,  will 
cease  to  shine,  and  the  planets,  owing  to  the  gradual  dim- 
inution of  their  orbits,  will  re-unite  themselves  with  the 
sun,  their  cradle  and  their  grave,  in  the  chaos  of  the  primal 
elements.*  All  great  things  wrought  by  man  on  earth 
must  then  necessarily  be  consigned  to  the  limbo  of  eternal 
oblivion.  In  the  face  of  such  a fact  let  us  just  ask,  what  is 
the  meaning  of  all  the  high-sounding  philosophical  phrases 
of  universal  purposes  to  be  effected  in  the  creation  of  man  ; 
of  the  incarnation  of  God  in  history  ; of  the  story  of  the 
earth  and  of  the  human  race  as  the  spontaneous  revelation 
of  the  Absolute  ; of  the  eternity  of  consciousness ; of  the 
freedom  of  the  human  will,  and  so  on  ? What  is  the  whole 
life  and  working  of  man  in  the  face  of  this  everlasting  and 
irresistible  course  of  Nature,  induced  by  inflexible  neces- 
sity and  inexorable  regularity  ? It  is  but  the  brief  play 
of  an  ephemeron,  hovering  over  the  ocean  of  eternity  and 
infinity  ! 

It  must  not,  however,  be  forgotten  that  though  our  little 
earth  with  its  inhabitants  may  perish,  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  the  fate  of  the  immeasurable  and  everlasting  universe 
should  likewise  be  sealed.  Nay,  at  the  very  time  when  our 
own  race  dies  away  in  cold  and  desolation,  we  have  a right 
to  assume  that  on  thousands  upon  thousands  of  other  spots 
in  the  universe  the  conditions  of  things  will  have  reached 
a culmination  point  from  which  a new  race  can  take  its 
departure,  similar  or  analogous  to  ourselves  in  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  physical  and  intellectual  formation,  and 
doomed,  like  ourselves,  to  eventual  individual  and  collective 
extinction.  Therefore,  the  destruction  of  our  earth  with 
everything  on  it  does  not  seem  to  signify  any  more  in  the 
universe,  than  the  death  of  one  individual  does  on  our  own 
earth  ; and  the  wave  of  life  which  passes  over  our  earth  is, 
as  Proctor  says  so  forcibly  and  so  beautifully,  “but  a gentle 


* Further  details  will  be  found  in  the  Author’s  Licht  und  Leben , in  the 
Essay  : Der  Kreislauf  der  Krafte  und  der  Weltuntergang . 


194 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


ripple  on  the  sea  of  life  within  the  solar  system,  and  this 
sea  of  life,  again,  is  itself  nothing  more  than  an  insignificant 
wave  in  the  ocean  of  the  eternal  life  of  the  universe.” 

Like  the  wife  of  Ulysses,  who  undid  at  night  what  her 
industrious  fingers  had  wrought  by  day(Di'iPrel),  Nature 
amuses  herself  with  an  eternal  building-up  and  destroy- 
ing, the  beginning  of  which  is  like  its  end,  and  the  end 
like  the  beginning. 

Thence,  as  Spiller  thinks,  by  a ‘‘continual  perfecting  in 
the  aggregation  of  atoms  [as  actually  occurs  on  the  earth] 
there  might  possibly  arise  an  improvement  in  organi- 
zation and  in  the  conditions  of  life  ” which  would  enable 
us  to  imagine  that  a gradual  progression  from  the  imperfect 
to  the  perfect  and  from  the  lowlier  to  the  higher,  as  we 
have  learned  from  the  history  of  our  earth,  would  take  place 
within  definite  periods  in  the  never-ending  regions  of  the 
universe.  But  for  us  men,  who  shall  never  see  nor  ex- 
perience this,  it  must  be  sufficient  to  know  that  the  minute 
particle  of  the  eternal  cycle  of  the  universe  which  we  are 
able  to  survey,  strives  upwards  within  certain  limits  towards 
perfection,  and  that  we  by  our  very  existence  must  con- 
tribute our  share  to  it. 

There  is  no  other  object  in  the  existence  of  the  indi- 
vidual or  in  that  of  the  universe  but  existence  itself ; and 
each  thing  and  each  life  discharges  its  duty  fully  and 
thoroughly  by  taking  part  within  its  individual  sphere 
in  the  eternal  life  of  the  universe,  which  moves  in  an 
unbroken  orbit  : 

Willst  Du,  dass  sich  an  einem  Bild 
Der  Welt  Geheimniss  Dir  enthlillt, 

So  sieh’  auf  einem  Blatte  weiss 
Gezogen  einen  dunklen  Kreis. 

Und  wie  sich  in  der  runden  Bahn 
Das  End’  dem  Anfang  fuget  an. 

So  fiiget  sich  im  Weltenall 


THE  FITNESS  OF  THINGS  IN  NATURE. 


195 


Das  End’  dem  Anfang  iiberall. 

In  ew’gem  Laufe  ohne  Ruh 
Strebt  Alles  seinem  Anfang  zu, 

Und  aller  Anfang  wunscht  zu  sein 
Da,  wo  das  Ende  fiigt  sich  ein. 

Drum  glaube  nicht,  dass  einst  die  Welt 
Aus  einem  Nichts  geworden  sei, 

Und  nicht,  dass  einst  zusammenfallt 
In  Nichts  der  Welten  Einerlei  1 
Denn  Alles,  was  geboren  wird, 

1st  ewig  schon  gewesen  da, 

Und  nicht  der  kleinste  Staub  verirrt 
Sich  in  des  Todes  Arme  ja. 

Du  selbst  bist  nur  ein  kleiner  Theil 
Der  unbegrenzten  Ewigkeit 
Und  nur  fiir  eine  kurze  Weil 
Gebannet  bier  in  Raum  und  Zeit. 

Drum  streitet,  Thoren,  ferner  nicht, 
Ob  Ihr  im  Geist  unsterblich  seid, 

Denn  keines  Todes  Macht  zerbricht 
Der  Dinge  Unverganglichkeit, 

Die  Alles,  was  da  ist  und  lebt. 

In  einem  ew’gen  Kreise  fiihrt 
Und,  wo  sie  zur  Vernichtung  strebt, 
Die  Flainmen  neuen  Lebens  schiirt. 
Unsterblich  ist  der  kleinste  Wurm, 
Unsterblich  auch  des  Menschen  Geist, 
Den  jeder  neue  Todessturm 
In  immer  neue  Bahnen  reisst. 

So  lebet  Ihr,  gestorben  auch, 

In  kunftigen  Geschlechtern  fort, 

Und  dieser  ewige  Gebrauch 
Verwechselt  nichts  als  — Zeit  und  Ortf 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


196 

(Wilt  thou  have  revealed  to  thee  as  in  a picture  the  secret 
of  the  universe  ? Then  gaze  at  a dark  circle  drawn  on  a 
blank  sheet.  And  as  in  its  orbit  the  end  joins  the  begin- 
ning, so  is  the  end  one  with  the  beginning  throughout  the 
universe.  In  the  eternal  cycle  everything  ceaselessly  strives 
towards  its  commencement,  and  every  beginning  yearns  to 
be  where  the  end  joins  it.  Therefore  dream  not  that  the 
universe  has  arisen  out  of  nothing,  nor  that  the  worlds  will 
collapse  into  nothingness.  For  whatever  is  born  has  been 
in  existence  from  eternity,  and  not  the  tiniest  speck  of  dust 
ever  loses  itself  in  the  arms  of  death.  Thou  thyself  art  but 
a minute  portion  of  the  boundless  Eternity,  and  art  but  for 
a brief  period  bound  up  within  Time  and  Space. 

Therefore  quarrel  no  longer,  ye  fools,  as  to  whether  you 
are  immortal  spirits,  for  no  power  of  death  can  break  the 
imperishable  chain  of  things  ; whatever  is  and  lives  moves 
in  an  eternal  circle,  and  wherever  it  struggles  towards  anni- 
hilation it  but  fans  the  flames  of  new  life.  Immortal  is  the 
tiniest  worm  ; immortal  also  is  the  mind  of  man,  which 
each  fresh  storm  of  death  drags  into  ever  new  roads  to  life. 
Thus,  dead,  thou  livest  in  future  generations,  and  this 
eternal  use  changes  nought  but  Time  and  Space.) 


Man. 


There  are  many  marvels  — but  there  is  no  greater  marvel  than  Man. — Soph- 
ocles. 

Men  originate  in  brutes  and  must  become  Gods. — L.  Jakoby. 

God  was  my  first,  Reason  my  second,  Man  my  third  and  last  thought.  Man 
alone  is  and  shall  be  our  God.  Outside  man  is  no  salvation. — L.  Feuer- 
bach. 

TH  E same  laws  which  in  the  preceding  chapters  have 
been  showm  as  ruling  in  the  macrocosm , or  universe, 
rule  also  in  the  microcosm , or  the  world  of  man,  in 
whose  existence,  being  and  thinking,  the  universe  is,  as  it 
were,  reflected  and  contemplated.  That  man  with  all  his 
eminent  qualities  and  faculties  is  not  a work  of  God  but  a 
product  of  Nature,  like  all  his  fellow-creatures,  and  has 
proceeded  from  a natural  and  gradual  evolution  and  self- 
education  — this  momentous  and  notorious  truth  can  only 
be  doubted  at  this  day  by  the  uninformed  or  deliberately  ob- 
stinate. During  the  short  space  of  scarcely  more  than  forty 
years  the  researches  on  the  early  history  of  the  human  race 
have  grown  into  a comprehensive  science  and  have  shown 
that  mankind  has  behind  it  a past  in  comparison  with 
which  the  historical  period  is  but  very  brief.  As  regards 
the  biblical  myths  and  fairy-tales  about  the  world  and  man 
having  been  created  some  five  or  six  thousand  years  ago  by 
a creative  fiat , they  are  really  too  childish,  too  radically 
at  variance  with  the  most  notorious  facts  and  results  of 
the  whole  geological,  archaeological  and  archaeogeological 
science,  to  be  made  the  subject  of  a serious  controversy. 
Not  only  has  it  been  shown  by  the  results  of  countless 

(197) 


198  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

excavations,  as  well  as  by  the  investigations  of  Egyptolo- 
gists, based  on  the  reading  of  hieroglyphic  scrolls,  that  in 
the  venerable  land  of  the  Nile  an  admirable  and  highly  de- 
veloped culture  and  civilization  existed  at  a period  to  which 
the  Bible  only  traces  the  creation  of  the  first  man  ; but  the 
researches  of  archseogeology  as  the  union  of  geological 
and  archaeological  science  is  called,  have  proved  beyond 
doubt  that  man  was  a contemporary  of  the  huge  mammals 
of  the  Diluvian  age,  which  are  now  either  extinct  or  have 
emigrated  from  Europe  ; that  he  existed  in  one  of  the 
earlier  periods  of  the  formation  of  our  earth,  during  which 
time  the  surface  of  the  globe  had  a very  different  geo- 
graphical configuration  and  was  subject  to  different  climatic 
conditions  from  those  that  exist  at  the  present  time.  Nay, 
there  are  a number  of  theoretical  arguments,  the  full  expo- 
sition of  which  wou’d  take  up  too  much  of  our  space,  and 
which,  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  results  of  many 
archseogeological  researches  — though  there  may  yet  be 
some  controversy  on  the  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  these 
— - make  it  appear  in  the  highest  degree  probable  that  the 
existence  of  man,  or  rather  of  his  earliest  beginnings  on 
earth,  goes  back  to  a time  that  must  be  computed  by  geo- 
logical, and  neither  by  historic  nor  prehistoric  standards  of 
measurement.  By  all  appearances  it  will  not  be  long  before 
the  existence  of  the  so-called  tertiary  man  — that  is  to  say, 
of  a human  or  anthropoid  creature,  existing  in  a later  or 
earlier  division  of  the  last  great  period  of  formation  of  the 
earth  — will  be  looked  upon  with  as  much  certainty  as  is 
now  the  existence  of  the  prehistoric  or  diluvial  man,  which 
had  been  doubted  for  such  a length  of  time.  Of  course 
this  would  not  affect  the  ancient  belief  in  the  principle  of 
perfection,  according  to  which  man  is  the  last  and  as  yet 
highest  outcome  of  the  organic  process  of  evolution  or 
graduated  progression  on  the  stage  of  existence  ; for  al- 
though, as  scholars  are  now  forced  to  admit,  the  antiquity 
of  man  on  earth  must  be  measured  by  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  years,  this  period  is  yet  but  exceedingly  brief  when 


Man. 


199 


compared  with  the  many  millions  of  years  which  the  earth, 
together  with  her  organized  inhabitants,  has  lived  through, 
in  her  gradual  progress  of  development ; so  that  the  exist- 
ence of  man  on  earth  must  upon  all  hands  be  considered  as 
comparatively  very  short.  Then  again,  modern  science 
ranges  among  exploded  fables  that  idea  that  used  to  be 
entertained  on  the  strength  of  religious  myths,  and  ac- 
cording to  which  man  came  out  of  the  creator’s  hand  as  a 
ready-made  product,  endowed  with  all  the  qualities  of  his 
race.  The  unchangeable  principle  of  the  order  of  the 
world,  based  upon  natural  and  mechanical  causality,  acts 
and  works  in  the  same  way  in  the  gradual  genesis  and 
formation  of  the  highest  of  all  organized  beings  as  it  does 
in  the  formation  of  the  least  and  lowliest.  However  obscure 
and  incomprehensible  the  appearance  of  man  on  the  earth’s 
surface  may  have  seemed  in  former  times,  and  however 
necessary  it  may  have  been  thought  to  explain  or  elucidate 
what  an  English  scientist  designated  as  the  ‘ ‘ secret  of 
secrets”  by  the  aid  of  a great  miracle  or  of  a supernatural 
act  of  creation,  it  has  now  become  obvious  to  all  men  of 
science  that  the  lofty  form  of  man  only  owes  its  origin  to  a 
slow  and  gradual  uprisal  from  the  animals  next  below  him, 
and  that  the  beginnings  of,  and  tendencies  to,  all  his  high 
physical  and  intellectual  qualities  and  faculties  are  clearly 
present  in  the  forms  of  life  beneath  him.  The  well-known 
lines  of  demarcation  upon  which  the  idealistic  philosophy 
of  the  past  laid  so  much  stress,  and  which,  in  the  opinion 
of  many  learned  men,  proved  the  existence  of  an  abyss 
between  men  and  animals  which  could  never  be  bridged 
over,  have  been  shown,  by  closer  investigation,  to  be  one 
and  all  of  but  a relative  and  not  an  absolute  nature,  and 
they  can  all  be  explained  by  gradual  development,  im- 
provement and  spontaneous  evolution.  Therefore  man 
does  not  stand  outside  nor  above  Nature,  but  wholly  and 
thoroughly  in  her  midst,  and  the  great  and  mischievous 
error  that  all  Nature  was  created  for  his  sake  and  for  his 
use  and  enjoyment  must  be  looked  upon  as  exploded,  just 


200 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


the  same  as  science  has  forever  done  away  with  the  anti- 
quated notion  of  the  importance  of  our  little  earth  as  the 
centre  of  the  universe.  Of  course  it  is  difficult  for  most 
men  to  emancipate  themselves  from  the  impressions  wrought 
by  an  education  permeated  with  spiritualism,  and  to  grasp 
the  great  truth  of  the  real  place  of  man  in  Nature  ; but 
this  cannot  prevent  the  eventual  triumph  of  true  knowledge. 
“ Gather  together  all  these  phenomena,”  says  Carus  Sterne 
( Werden  imd  Vergehen , p.  340),  ‘‘and  their  convincing 
force  is  so  great  that  he  who,  in  the  face  of  them,  impugns 
man’s  descent  from  animals,  lays  himself  open  to  the  re- 
proach that  he  is  not  capable  of  drawing  an  inference  of 
the  simplest  nature.”  ‘‘Such  objections  as  the  absence  of 
transition -forms  can,”  as  Professor  O.  Schmidt  ( Descen - 
denzlehre  tind  D arwinisnuis , p 275),  cogently  remarks, 
“ only  be  raised  by  dilcttayiti , to  whom  the  realm  of  living 
things  as  a whole  remains  a sealed  book.” 

Those  who  believe  that  they  ought  to  trace  the  origin  of 
man  to  other  than  natural  causes,  will  find  it  quite  impos- 
sible to  explain  why  the  original  stock  of  men  should  have 
branched  off  into  so  many  different  races  and  species,  and 
why  the  innumerable  languages  should  differ  from  one  an- 
other so  very  widely  as  to  make  it  impossible  to  conceive 
that  they  could  all  have  sprung  from  a common  root  or 
primitive  tongue.  All  investigators  into  this  subject  are 
now  agreed  that  the  formation  of  races  must  have  pre- 
ceded the  formation  of  languages  ; that  is  to  say,  that 
mankind,  though  existing  originally  in  a single  form,  but 
in  many  pairs,  had  been  split  up  into  different  races  a long 
time  prior  to  the  origin  of  language ; nay,  it  must  be 
thought  possible  or  probable  that  the  same  race,  even  after 
its  divergence  from  the  common  stock,  evolved  various 
different  languages.  From  this  it  follows  with  certainty 
that  articulate  speech,  the  distinguishing  mark  of  humanity, 
which  in  the  opinion  of  eminent  scientists  must  necessarily 
have  preceded  and  not  followed  the  evolution  of  higher 
human  intellectual  activity  and  civilization,  was  not  in  pos - 


MAN. 


201 


session  of  the  first  man,  and  that  the  biblical  Adam,  if  he 
existed,  must  have  been  an  oAaAor  or  speechless  savage, 
occupying  a position  much  nearer  to  the  brutes  than  to 
man  as  he  is  now.  To  this  very  day  there  are  still  plenty 
of  speechless  tribes,  whose  faculty  of  language  is  not  raised 
much  above  that  of  animals,  and  even  among  ourselves  we 
still  find  speechless  human  animals  ; these  are  our  sucking 
babies,  and  children  brought  up  in  the  desert  or  in  solitude, 
who,  like  animals,  utter  sounds  but  have  no  language. 
Now  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  that  the  gift  of  language, 
if  bestowed  or  transmitted  by  divine  wisdom  upon  man  as 
originally  created,  would  ever  have  been  lost,  especially 
within  the  short  space  of  from  five  to  six  thousand  years, 
allowed  by  the  biblical  cosmogony.  But  if  no  reason  can 
exist  without  language,  it  is  plain  that  the  first  man  can 
have  been  no  rational  being,  that  is  to  say,  no  man  in  the 
present  sense  of  the  word  ; he  was  rather  a hybrid  creature 
between  man  and  beast,  and  from  a savage  anthropophagist 
has  gradually  worked  his  way  up  to  his  present  position, 
through  very  protracted  periods  of  time,  by  the  well-known 
natural  influences,  and  all  the  while  in  a constant  struggle 
for  his  existence.  To  the  civilized  and  cultured  man,  who 
has  always  his  own  form  before  his  eyes,  it  may  seem  diffi- 
cult to  descend  in  thought  into  those  wild  depths  of  his 
primal  and  natural  origin  and  condition  : but  a glance  at  so 
many  of  his  human  brothers  who  have  lagged  behind  or 
stood  still  on  the  road  towards  a higher  human  condition, 
and  a rapid  survey  of  the  great  results  of  pre  historic 
science  will  be  amply  sufficient  to  make  him  forget  the 
childish  fable  about  the  creation  of  the  ready-made  man. 
Nor  will  his  sense  of  human  dignity  be  affected  by  this,  if 
he  remembers  the  admirable  words  of  a French  writer  : 
“It  is  better  to  be  an  ennobled  animal  than  a degenerate 
Adam,”  and  if  he  bears  in  mind  that  among  all  the  forms 
brought  forth  by  the  working  of  natural  forces  through 
long  and  toilsome  evolution,  he  is,  after  all,  the  highest 
and,  comparatively  speaking,  the  most  perfect.  Not  as  the 


202 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


humble  and  submissive  slave  of  a supernatural  master,  nor 
as  the  helpless  toy  in  the  hands  of  heavenly  powers,  but  as 
a proud  and  free  son  of  Nature,  understanding  her  laws 
and  knowing  how  to  turn  them  to  his  own  use,  does  the 
creature  of  modern  civilization,  the  Freethinker,  appear  ; 
being  no  longer,  as  Brookes  called  him,  that  “unhallowed 
medium  between  angel  and  beast,”  but  the  incarnation  of 
the  mightiest  effort  of  Nature  ; though  on  the  one  hand  he 
partakes  of  all  the  weaknesses  and  imperfections  of  his 
animal  nature  and  origin,  on  the  other  he  is  raised  up 
above  this  nature  of  his  and  becomes  the  ruler  of  the 
world,  by  virtue  of  the  enhanced  powers  of  his  highly 
developed  nervous  system. 

In  fact,  neither  the  enervating  influences  ot  a factitiously 
fostered  fear  of  God,  nor  the  bewildering  phrases  of  scho- 
lastic philosophy  have  been  able  to  debar  the  human  race  as 
such  from  taking  its  due  place  at  the  head  of  the  natural 
order  of  things,  and  man  from  wielding  a dominion,  cir- 
cumscribed only  by  his  own  impotence,  over  the  mass  of 
his  fellow-creatures,  as  well  as  over  Nature  herself,  so  far 
as  he  understands  her  and  knows  how  to  curb  her.  Of 
those  very  forces  of  Nature  which  have  produced  man,  he 
has,  by  the  power  of  his  reason,  made  his  willing  and 
powerful  servants,  and  this  he  will  do  in  the  future  in  an 
ever  progressing  ratio. 

Of  course,  this  has  not  always  been  so,  and  only  by  a 
long  and  weary  training  through  study  and  experience  has 
man,  after  surmounting  countless  steps  of  error,  reached 
that  pure  clearness  of  free  and  unprejudiced  thought  in 
which  all  scientific  minds  now  move  or  ought  to  move. 
Deep  ignorance  of  the  laws  of  the  Nature  surrounding  him, 
and  a very  intelligible  fear  of  the  natural  forces  pressing 
on  him  and  threatening  him,  in  conjunction  with  a belief  in 
the  continuance  of  the  principle  of  life  after  death,  which 
was  incomprehensible  to  him,  must  necessarily  have  led  the 
earliest  man,  when  he  came  to  consider  a little,  to  anthro- 
pomorphic ideas  and  fancies  of  a divine  and  supernatural 


MAN. 


203 


government  of  the  world,  which  belief  being  fostered  and 
worked  upon  by  ambitious  priests,  has  brought  so  much 
misery  and  such  great  trouble  on  poor  suffering  humanity. 
“O  unhappy  race  of  mortals,”  exclaims  Lucretius  Carus 
in  his  famous  poem,  ‘‘  that  ascribes  such  things  to  the  Gods 
and  imputes  to  them  such  embittered  wrath  ! What  grief 
have  they  not  brought  upon  themselves,  what  injuries  upon 
us,  and  what  tears  upon  our  posterity  ! ” 

This  unnatural  idolatry  flourished  most  exuberantly  in 
the  dark  days  of  mediaeval  mysticism,  when  people  imagined 
all  Nature  filled  with  angels  and  devils  fighting  one  another, 
and  sought  relief  from  the  misery  of  earthly  existence  in 
the  joys  of  an  imagined  paradise.  “ I would  not  give  up 
one  moment  in  heaven  for  all  the  possessions  and  joys  of 
earth,  even  though  they  should  last  for  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  years,”  said  Luther , the  great  Reformer,  who 
despite  the  great  merit  he  acquired  in  setting  man’s  mind 
and  conscience  free  from  the  yoke  of  Rome,  remained  a 
consummate  priest  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart.  In  the 
words  quoted  he  clearly  expressed  the  views  and  notions  of 
those  who  only  behave  themselves  on  earth  in  order  that 
they  may  be  rewarded  a thousandfold  in  heaven,  and  who 
act  like  Jews  lending  money  at  usury.  “ The  pious,”  says 
Bdrne,  ‘‘look  at  heaven  as  a court,  and  look  down  with 
contempt  on  all  those  who  have  not  the  entry,  like  them- 
selves. ’ ’ 

If  ever  such  views  could  become  general  and  practical, 
so  that  life  and  thought  should  be  ruled  by  them,  then  man 
would  cease  to  strive  after  earthly  improvement  and  per- 
fection and  would  subside  into  a passive  faith,  turning  up 
his  eyes  like  a dying  duck  in  a thunderstorm.  ‘‘For,”  as 
Ludwig  Feuerbach  tersely  and  cogently  remarks,  ‘ ‘ if  we 
are  born  for  heaven,  we  are  lost  for  earth.”  When  man 
has  once  got  used  to  regard  himself  as  a poor,  miserable 
sinner,  who  can  only  escape  eternal  damnation  by  unceasing 
genuflections  and  undignified  self-abasement,  it  is  obvious 
that  there  is  an  end  not  only  of  human  dignity  and  human 


204 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


pride,  but  also  of  human  energy  and  vigor.  If  we  allow 
supernatural  wisdom  and  power  to  lord  it  over  us  and  to 
provide  for  us,  then  an  existence  worthy  of  the  true  end  of 
humanity,  or  of  what  the  Scotch  catechism  calls  the  chief 
end  of  man,  becomes  an  impossibility.  “ The  malicious 
devil,”  says  Luther,  ‘‘the  enemy  of  God  and  Christ,  en- 
deavors to  allure  us  to  think  and  care  for  ourselves,  so  that 
we  may  presume  to  usurp  God’s  office,  which  is  to  care  for 
us  and  be  our  God.” 

Fortunately  such  views  have  usually  prevailed  rather  in 
theory  than  in  practice  ; and  the  sound  sense  of  human 
nature,  which  is  not  entirely  to  be  stifled  by  any  dogma, 
as  well  as  the  irresistible  pressure  of  life,  have  guarded 
mankind  as  a whole  from  the  ruinous  influences  of  a con- 
ception of  life  divorced  from  the  terrestrial  ; a conception 
which,  on  account  of  its  spiritualistic  convulsion,  must  be 
regarded  as  the  most  inveterate  enemy  of  material  culture 
and  elevation,  and  which  has  inflicted,  and  continues  to 
inflict,  infinite  injury  on  man.  But  there  will  be  less  and 
less  of  this  as  man  advances  in  knowledge  and  intellect, 
and  as  he  learns  to  understand  that  the  aim  and  object 
of  all  human  effort  must  not  be  the  contempt,  but  the 
knowledge,  control,  and  utilization  of  Nature.  Towards 
this  the  whole  thought  and  working  of  civilized  mankind 
are  actually  tending  at  the  present  day.  In  practical  life 
men  give  the  lie  direct  to  their  faith,  which  has  sprung  from 
Oriental  fatalism  and  despair  of  life  ; a faith  to  whose  dia- 
metrical and  irreconcilable  opposition  to  all  intellectual  and 
mental  progress  and  to  all  efforts  directed  towards  the  joy 
and  happiness  of  life,  no  thoughtful  person  can  shut  his 
eyes.  ‘‘In  practice,”  says  L.  Feuerbach  very  correctly, 
“ all  men  are  Atheists  ; they  deny  their  faith  by  their  acts.” 
Only  the  vast  power  of  habit  and  of  education  directed  into 
a religious  channel  can  explain  and  render  it  conceivable, 
that  this  antithesis  is  so  little  appreciated  in  general,  and 
that  the  majority  both  of  the  learned  and  the  unlearned,  as 
though  spellbound  within  a magic  slumber,  continue  to 


MAN. 


205 


feed  their  minds  with  long-exploded  nursery  stories  and 
fancies,  while  all  around  them  the  sun  of  truth  and  knowl- 
edge scatters  its  rays,  as  it  were,  from  every  corner  of 
contemporaneous  literature. 

It  has  been  reserved  for  our  time  to  complete  theoreti- 
cally and  scientifically  the  victory  long  since  won  in  practical 
life  by  the  human  principle  over  the  divine.  As  a star  of 
the  first  magnitude  we  are  met  here  by  the  name  of  Ludwig 
Feuerbach , the  philosopher  par  excellence  of  emancipated 
and  self-contained  humanity.  To  this  deep-thinking  philos- 
opher, who  traces  all  ideas  of  God  back  to  man’s  invention 
and  self-idealization,  the  human  being  is  at  the  same  time 
the  highest  being.  “The  Godhead  of  the  individual,”  he 
exclaims,  “is  the  revealed  mystery  of  religion,  and  the 
negation  of  God  is  the  position  of  the  individual.”  But 
when  once  nations  have  advanced  so  far  as  no  longer  to 
build  up  their  God  from  sensual,  but  from  intellectual  con- 
ceptions, then  the  word  “God”  expresses  no  longer  an 
idealization  of  the  whole  man  or  a deification  of  the  human 
entity,  but  only  a blending  together  and  involution  of  the 
highest  intellectual  properties  of  human  nature,  that  is  to 
say  the  idealized  existence  of  human  reason.  “ God,  un- 
anthropomorphic  and  stripped  of  human  characteristics,  is 
nothing  more  than  the  essence  of  Reason.” 

Feuerbach  has  thus  arrived  at  his  peculiar  standpoint, 
from  which  he  seeks  with  a singular  abundance  of  knowl- 
edge and  perspicacity  to  vindicate  the  natural  right  of  man, 
which  has  seemingly  been  swallowed  up  in  a vortex  of  dog- 
matic quarrels,  priestly  ignorance  and  philosophic  chiaro- 
oscuro.  To  man  he  now  traces  every  intellectual  quality  ; 
and  anthropology,  or  the  knowledge  of  man  in  the  widest 
sense  of  the  word,  is  to  him  the  crown  and  blossom  of  every 
science  and  a perfect  substitute  for  religion  and  philosophy. 
In  fact,  the  great  and  unexpected  development  of  this 
science  during  the  last  ten  years  has  shown  the  Radical 
thinker  to  have  been  in  the  right,  and  has  proved  most 
conclusively  that  man,  evolved  by  natural  means  as  the 


206 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


highest  product  of  Nature  and  of  the  natural  order  of 
things,  need  not  make  any  but  his  own  nature,  and  his  own 
idiosyncrasy  the  starting  point  of  his  most  ideal  conceptions 
and  efforts.  What  is  common  to  the  knowledge  of  all  men 
and  of  all  times,  and  being  common,  advances  in  constant 
progression , is  God,  or  rather  the  idealized  existence  of  human 
reason  transmuted  into  the  idea  of  God.  Not  “to”  God, 
but  “towards”  God  will  man  have  to  rise  in  the  future,  if 
he  remains  loyal  to  Feuerbach’s  thought,  and  in  doing  so 
will  verify  the  words  of  our  motto,  that  men  have  indeed 
originated  from  the  brutes,  but  are  destined  to  become  Gods. 

It  does  not  detract  from  the  merit  of  Feuerbach,  but  on 
the  contrary  adds  to  the  greatness  of  his  idea,  to  find  that 
in  earlier  or  more  ancient  schools  of  thought  views  had 
been  given  utterance  to  which  are  analagous  and  cognate 
to  his.  Thus  it  is  said  of  the  Chinese  religious  teacher 
Lao-Tse  (translated, “the  old  child”)  — a contemporary  of 
the  great  Confucius,  who  was  born  some  565  or  604  years 
before  Christ,  and  who  wrote  the  famous  book  Tao-te-king 
(the  way  to  virtue,  or  the  book  on  force  and  action)- — that 
he  called  the  highest  being  Tao,  a word  which  philologists 
render  by  “ Reason,”  or  “ Universal  Reason,”  and  that  he 
identified  reason  in  man  with  the  reason  of  the  universe  and 
with  the  highest  being  itself ; yet,  in  his  system  there  is  no 
trace  of  an  intimation  of  the  existence  of  a personal  God. 
Tao  loves  all  beings  and  cares  for  all,  but  does  not  want  to 
be  their  lord  a?id  ruler.  It  is  eternal  and  has  no  earthly 
desires.  Lao-Tse,  from  the  purity  and  elevation  of  his 
teaching,  has  rightly  been  styled  the  Chinese  Christ ; and 
this  teaching  of  his  so  much  resembles  that  of  the  Christian 
Church  that  the  Jesuit  missionaries  of  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  very  properly  held  that  the  secret  of 
Christianity  must  have  been  revealed  to  the  Chinese  five 
hundred  years  earlier  than  to  the  Jews.  But  as  though  a 
curse  rested  on  all  religion,  Lao-Tse’s  disciples  and  succes- 
sors, by  the  contemptible  Shamanistic  impostures,  brought 
contempt  and  disrepute  upon  themselves  and  the  Tao 


MAN.  207 

doctrine  too,  just  as  the  successors  of  Christ  did  upon  his 
teachings. 

The  contemporary  of  Lao-Tse,  the  great  and  more 
sensible  moralist  Confutsee  or  Confucius,  strove,  by  ban- 
ishing from  his  system  all  that  was  supernatural,  to  direct 
human  thoughts  and  actions  entirely  to  the  earth  ; it  was 
he  who  laid  down  the  famous  maxim  that  makes  all  other 
moral  commandments  unnecessary  : “ Do  unto  others  as 
you  would  that  others  should  do  unto  you.”  He  never 
spoke  of  a creator,  nor  of  a supernatural  order  of  things  ; 
and  a pious  regard  for  one’s  ancestors  is  the  only  precept  of 
his  religion  which  goes  beyond  the  range  of  earthly  life. 

The  famous  natural  religion  of  Buddha,  the  great  founder 
of  the  rationalist  creed  of  the  Hindoos,  which  will  be  dealt 
with  at  greater  length  in  a subsequent  chapter,  is  at  the 
bottom  nothing  more  than  a deification  of  human  nature  ; 
and  to  this  are  linked  a large  number  of  similar  and  kin- 
dred ideas  and  apophthegms  on  the  history  of  human 
thought.  The  same  thought  inspired  Thomas  Muntzner, 
the  famous  leader  of  peasants,  when  he  said  to  his  fol- 
lowers : “ The  Holy  Ghost  is  our  reason  and  our  under- 
standing.” 

And  these  alone  are  in  reality  the  two  things,  which  man 
should  consult  and  on  which  he  must  rely,  on  turning  his 
glance  to  the  future  that  lies  before  him  ; which  future,  in 
all  probability,  portends  much  greater  things  that  the  past 
ever  worked.  When  we  come  to  consider  how  short  a 
period  has  been  occupied  by  the  development  of  the  civili- 
zation of  mankind,  as  compared  with  pre-historic  periods, 
and  to  what  a very  small  portion  of  the  earth’s  surface  this 
development  extends  ; when  we  further  bear  in  mind  what 
vast  horizons  are  being  opened  up  on  all  sides  by  the 
advance  of  science,  knowledge  and  industry,  and  how  the 
comparative  rate  of  progress  increases  with  progress  itself; 
and  finally,  when  we  remember  how  much  we  still  retain  in 
our  refined  life  of  the  crude  tendencies  and  instincts  of  our 
barbarous  past,  and  how  the  savage  ‘ ‘ struggle  for  exist- 


20S 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


ence  ” handed  down  to  us  from  animal  life  still  rages  as  bad 
as  ever,  though  in  a modified  shape,  we  feel  compelled  to 
admit  that  our  civilization  is  still  altogether  in  its  infancy, 
and  that  we  have  as  yet  traversed  but  a small  portion  of  the 
path  marked  out  for  us.  Increased  means  of  conquering 
the  material  obstacles  which  Nature  and  life  place  in  our 
way ; the  growth  of  culture  and  knowledge,  combined 
with  enhanced  success  in  contending  against  ignorance  and 
superstition  ; the  lessening  of  the  evils  that  flesh  is  heir 
to  ; the  abolition  of  war,  of  poverty,  of  every  method  oi 
men  taking  undue  advantage  of  one  another,  and  the 
substitution  of  the  principle  of  universal  human  love  and 
universal  peace  among  nations  for  the  ruinous  struggle  for 
existence  — these  and  many  more  that  are  interwoven  with 
them  should  be  the  aims  and  objects  of  man’s  aspiration  in 
the  future.  ‘ 1 We  stand,”  says  Lubbock  ( Prehistoric  Time), 
“ in  reality  but  on  the  threshold  of  civilization.  Far  from 
showing  any  indications  of  having  come  to  an  end,  the 
tendency  to  improvement  seems  latterly  to  have  proceeded 

with  augmented  impetus  and  accelerated  rapidity 

There  are  many  things  which  are  not  as  yet  dreamt  of  in 
our  philosophy  ; many  discoveries  which  will  immortalize 
those  who  make  them  and  confer  upon  the  human  race  ad- 
vantages which,  as  yet,  perhaps,  we  are  not  in  a condition 
to  appreciate.  We  may  still  say  with  our  great  country- 
man, Sir  Isaac  Newton,  that  we  have  been  but  like  children, 
playing  on  the  sea-shore,  and  picking  up  here  and  there  a 
smoother  pebble  or  a prettier  shell  than  ordinary,  while  the 
great  ocean  of  truth  lies  all  undiscovered  before  us.  Thus, 
then,  the  most  sanguine  hopes  for  the  future  are  justified  by 
the  whole  experience  of  the  past.”* 

* This  matter  has  been  treated  by  the  Author  at  much  greater  length  and 
much  more  thoroughly  than  has  been  possible  in  this  condensed  chapter,  in 
his  work  on  “ Der  Mensch  und  seine  Stellung  in  der  Natur ; oder , IVoher 
kommen  wirf  Wer  sind  uuir?  Wohin  gehen  wir  t ’ ' In  this  treatise  he  dwells 
chiefly  on  the  antiquity  of  man,  the  animal  origin  of  man,  and  his  probable 
future  development. 


Brain  and  Mind. 


Mind  and  the  totality  of  the  living  active  nerve-centres  of  an  animal  or  human 
existence  are  perfectly  identical  notions  for  the  unprejudiced  natural  inves-. 
tigator.  Outside  the  nerve-centres  there  is  no  mind. — Prof.  C.  B.  Bruhl. 
The  soul  is  the  brain  in  action,  and  nothing  more.—  Brgussais. 

From  matter  we  rise  to  mind  by  means  of  the  brain. — H.  Tuttle. 

THAT  the  brain  — that  soft  organ  which  fills  the  in- 
terior of  the  cranium,  and  which,  next  to  the  liver,  is 
of  all  the  organs  of  the  human  body  the  densest  and 
therefore  comparatively  the  richest  in  blood-supply — is  the 
organ  of  thought,  volition  and  sensation,  and  that  the  latter 
cannot  be  conceived  without  the  former,  is  a truth  about 
which  hardly  any  physician  or  physiologist  can  be  in  doubt. 
Science,  daily  experience,  and  a number  of  the  most  telling 
facts,  of  necessity  force  this  upon  their  conviction.  There- 
fore, in  sketching  the  subjoined  outline  of  facts,  we  are  less 
actuated  by  the  desire  of  imparting  something  new  to  them, 
than  a desire  to  give  some  clearer  notions  of  the  subject  to 
the  general  public,  which  often  finds  insoluble  problems  in 
the  simplest  and  clearest  truths  of  natural  research.  It  is 
strange  that  in  this  matter  people  have  at  all  times  stub- 
bornly refused  to  acknowledge  the  irresistible  power  of 
facts  ; but  this  is  easily  accounted  for,  and  considerations 
of  a certain  amour-propre  and  egotism  are  decidedly  at  the 
bottom  of  it. 

The  brain  is  the  seat  and  organ  of  thought ; its  size,  its 
shape,  its  development,  the  manner  or  grade  of  its  compo- 
sition and  formation,  and  the  arrangement  of  its  individual 
parts,  stand  in  a definite  relation  to  the  quality  and  quantity 

(209) 


210 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


of  the  psychical  and  intellectual  performances  thereof.  The 
important  science  of  comparative  anatomy  is  here  of  the 
greatest  value,  showing,  as  it  does,  how,  throughout  the 
animal  kingdom,  from  the  lowest  up  to  the  highest  animal 
and  to  man  himself,  there  exists  a definite  and  gradually 
progressing  proportion  between  the  qualitative  and  quanti- 
tative condition  of  the  brain.  Man  who,  by  virtue  of  his 
intellectual  faculties,  is  admitted  to  be  far  above  the  col- 
lective animal  world,  has  also  — apart  from  a few  exceptions 
which  shall  be  more  closely  examined  by  and  by  — the 
largest  brain,  absolutely  and  relatively , among  all  living 
beings.  Although  the  bulk  of  brain  possessed  by  a few 
animals,  known  as  the  largest  now  in  existence,  such  as  the 
whale,  the  elephant  and  the  large  species  of  dolphins,  sur- 
passes the  brain  of  man,  this  apparent  exception  really 
arises  from  the  greater  size  of  those  parts  which  do  not 
represent  either  intelligence  or  capacity  for  thought,  but 
serve  the  nervous  system  of  the  body  as  centres  of  move- 
ment and  sensation,  as  well  as  of  unknown  nervous  action, 
and  have  necessarily  a greater  development  of  mass  on 
account  of  the  greater  number  and  thickness  of  the  nervous 
fibres  in  connection  with  them  ; whilst  the  parts  of  the  brain 
concerned  with  the  function  of  thought  are  in  no  animal 
equal  in  size,  form,  and  relative  composition  to  what  they 
are  in  man.  Therefore,  quite  another  result  follows  when 
the  relative  weight  of  the  brain,  i.  e.  its  weight  in  relation 
to  that  of  the  body,  is  taken  into  consideration.  In  this 
respect  also  man  (with  a few  insignificant  exceptions)  sur- 
passes the  whole  animal  world,  and  so  much  is  this  the  case 
that,  whilst  in  man  the  weight  of  the  brain  amounts  to  from 
one-fiftieth  to  one-thirty-fifth  part  of  the  weight  of  the  body, 
in  the  dolphin  it  amounts  only  to  the  hundredth  part,  in  the 
elephant  to  the  five  hundredth,  and  in  the  whale  to  the 
three-thousandth  part  of  the  aggregate  weight  of  their  re- 
spective bodies.  If  this  relative  proportion  is  calculated 
upon  the  mass  of  the  body,  then  (according  to  Leuret)  the 
average  weight  of  brain  to  each  ten  thousand  parts  of  body- 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


21 1 


substance  is  : in  fishes,  r8  ; in  reptiles,  7'6  ; in  birds,  42‘2; 
in  mammals,  53 '8  ; in  man,  277'8.  These  figures  sufficiently 
show  the  enormous  gradual  increase  of  the  mass  of  brain 
in  the  vertebrate  sub-kingdom,  corresponding  to  the  rise 
in  the  intellectual  scale.  Even  among  the  articulata  — 
whose  highest  divisions  in  perfection  of  organization  and 
intellectual  endowment  are  far  above  the  lowest  divisions  of 
the  vertebrata,  though  the  latter  stand  above  them  as  a 
whole  — the  bees  and  ants,  as  also  their  nearest  relations, 
whose  extraordinary  and  almost  miraculous  intellectual 
capacity  has  become  proverbial,  are  distinguished  by  a 
brain  highly  developed  in  shape  and  composition,  and 
very  large  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  their  bodies. 

However,  the  intellectual  value  of  the  brain,  both  among 
men  and  animals,  must  not  be  computed  exclusively  by  its 
size,  that  is  by  its  size  as  a whole,  which  is  a very  imperfect 
standard  of  its  intellectual  capacity,  but  also  and  very  much 
more  so  by  the  proportions  of  its  shape  and  composition. 
“ Not  the  quantity  only,  but  also  the  quality  of  the  nervous 
tissues,”  says  Valentin  ( Textbook  of  Physiology/)  ‘‘and  the 
consequent  amount  of  energy,  and  of  the  reciprocal  action 
of  the  individual  elements,  forms  the  measure  of  the  pro- 
portionate value  of  intellectual  activity.” 

In  this  respect  also  comparative  anatomy  and  physiology 
have  shown  that  man  stands  higher  than  all  other  creatures  ; 
for  instance  in  man  the  hemispheres  of  the  cerebrum,  the 
external  layer  of  which  — the  gray  matter — is  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  peculiar  seat  of  intellectual  activity,  are  far 
more  highly  developed  than  in  any  other  animal  in  com- 
parison with  the  cerebellum.  When  the  brain  is  looked  at 
from  above,  they  completely  cover  the  cerebellum,  while 
this  is  not  the  case  with  the  brain  of  any  brute.  Closely 
connected  with  this  development  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres 
is  the  greater  development  of  the  famous  convolutions  of  the 
brain,  which  cover  the  external  surface,  disposed  in  a reg- 
ular system  of  winding,  interceding  furrows,  and  which 
have  no  other  use  than  that  of  giving  the  greatest  possible 


212  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

extension  and  anatomical  complexity  of  arrangement  to  the 
gray  matter  of  the  brain  ; this  substance  covering  the  whole 
surface  to  the  depth  of  several  lines,  and  the  two  funda- 
mental elements  of  the  nervous  system,  fibres  and  cells 
(ganglionic  or  nervous  centres),  being  so  arranged  in  it  as 
to  afford  the  greatest  possible  number  of  material  points  of 
contact  between  them.  This  is  all  the  more  necessary  since 
it  is  the  function  of  the  fibres  to  convey  to  the  brain  im- 
pressions from  without  and  from  the  body  itself,  while  the 
ganglionic  or  nerve-cells,  having  received  these  impres- 
sions, work  upon  them,  and  with  the  aid  of  the  efferent 
and  the  intercommunicating  fibres  transmute  them  into 
reflective  or  volitional  impulses.  The  fibrous  tissue  of  the 
brain  is  dead  white  in  color,  whilst,  wherever  nerve-cells 
or  ganglionic  masses  are  found  with  them,  the  brain-sub- 
stance is  of  gray-rose  color,  partly  because  of  the  cells  and 
partly  from  its  greater  vascularity  ; hence  the  distinction 
between  the  gray  and  the  white  matter  of  the  brain.  This 
gray  matter  has  also  been  termed  the  brain-mantle,  partly 
because  it  covers  the  brain  like  a mantle,  and  partly  because 
of  its  peculiar  disposition  in  folds.  This  arrangement  in- 
creases the  mass  or  extension  of  the  gray  matter,  which 
covers  all  the  folds  of  the  windings  to  the  before-mentioned 
depth,  thus  obtaining  more  than  twelve  times  the  superficial 
extent,  without  increasing  the  size  of  the  head  or  the  arch 
of  the  skull  to  an  unnatural  or  excessive  proportion. 

This  brain -mantle,  as  we  have  said,  is  without  any  doubt 
whatever  the  portion  of  the  brain  to  which  are  entrusted 
the  higher  mental  or  intellectual  functions,  such  as  thought, 
imagination,  consciousness,  sensation  and  volition  ; while 
the  underlying  white  or  fibrous  tissue  only  serves  as  an 
organ  of  conduction,  and  the  islands  of  gray  matter  in  the 
interior  of  the  cerebrum  serve  as  centres  for  the  nervous 
action  of  the  brain,  in  its  capacity  of  superintendent  of  the 
whole  nervous  system 

If  the  human  brain,  as  shown  in  the  foregoing,  surpasses 
all  animal  brains  in  absolute  or  relative  development  of 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


213 


mass,  except  in  the  few  above-mentioned  instances,  it  is 
still  more  above  them  in  the  internal  arrangement  of  its 
individual  parts,  especially  in  the  development  and  arrange- 
ment of  the  gray  substance  and  of  the  convolutions,  which 
in  extent,  depth,  number,  multiformity  and  asymmetry  or 
irregularity  of  disposition  are  approached  by  no  animal 
brain  ; perhaps  a few  exceptions  to  this  should  be  made  in 
favor  of  the  brain  of  the  large  anthropoid  apes,  though 
these  again  labor  under  other  and  important  defects.  The 
lower  we  descend  in  the  animal  scale,  the  more  rapidly  do 
the  numbers  of  convolutions  decrease.  Thus,  the  brain- 
surface  of  fishes  and  amphibians  is  quite,  and  that  of  birds 
almost  smooth  and  without  convolutions.  The  lowest 
orders  ol  mammalia  have  also  smooth  brains,  or  show  but 
the  merest  trace  ol  convolutions  ; and  it  is  only  in  apes, 
elephants,  dolphins,  dogs,  carnivora  and  ruminants  that 
they  obtain  a larger  development.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
brain  of  bees  and  ants  is  very  rich  in  convolutions. 

The  same  differences  that  exist  between  human  and 
animal  brains  are  also  to  be  noticed  in  comparing  indi- 
vidual human  brains  with  each  other,  both  in  regard  to  the 
convolutions  and  the  increase  of  surface  obtained  thereby  ; 
it  is  easy  to  prove  by  countless  examples  that  intellectual 
endowment  or  capacity  for  achievement  is  like  a mathemat- 
ical function  of  the  development  of  the  convolutions  and 
of  the  gray  matter  of  the  brain.  This  is  true  not  only  of 
individual  races  and  nations,  but  equally  of  individual 
specimens  of  mankind.  The  subject  has  been  treated  in  a 
remarkable  work  by  that  painstaking  scientist  Dr.  Hermann 
Wagner,*  from  which  it  clearly  appears  that  the  superficial 
extent  of  the  brain  mcreases  with  the  intellectual  power. 
Thus,  Wagner  found  the  aggregate  area  of  the  brain  of  an 
orang-outang  he  measured,  to  amount  only  to  a fourth  of 
that  of  the  average  human  brain,  while  in  the  case  of  a 
manual  laborer  the  surface  of  the  brain  was  some  fifty 
square  inches  less  than  in  the  case  of  two  scientists.  The 

* Massbestimmungen  der  Oberfiache  des  grosscn  Gehirns , 1864. 


214 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


convolutions  of  the  brain  of  Beethoven,  the  great  musician, 
were,  according  to  Dr.  J.  Wagner’s  report,  “ twice  as  deep 
and  numerous  as  usual.”  On  the  other  hand  Longet  shows 
that  in  the  brains  of  idiots,  or  creatures  who  are  born  im- 
beciles the  convolutions  are  less  deep  and  the  gray  matter 
is  less  thick  than  in  normal  brains.  A child,  also,  despite 
the  large  size  of  his  brain  in  comparison  with  that  of  his 
body,  has  but  very  imperfect  convolutions,  and  only  de- 
velops these  after  attaining  a certain  age.  Prior  to  the 
ninth  month  of  pregnancy  the  convolutions  are  not  even 
visible  ; until  then  the  human  foetus  has  a smooth  brain, 
like  that  of  the  lower  vertebrates. 

We  should,  however,  fall  into  a serious  error  if  we  rated 
the  intellectual  value  of  a brain  only  by  the  conditions 
above-mentioned,  by  its  size  and  the  number  of  its  con- 
volutions ; much  more  depends  on  the  details  of  its  internal 
structure  and  its  chemical  composition,  so  that  if  an  indi- 
vidual brain  be  deficient  in  one  direction,  the  defect  may  be 
compensated  by  advantages  in  other  directions.  Especially 
does  it  appear  averred  from  the  unanimous  statements  of 
brain-anatomists,  that  the  physical  density  or  firmness  of 
the  mass  of  the  brain  is  beyond  doubt  of  very  great  im- 
portance, so  that  the  brain  of  an  intelligent  and  clever 
person  is  denser  and  firmer  than  that  of  a stupid  and  weak- 
minded  one.  So  also  is  the  brain  of  higher  races,  which 
have  advanced  in  culture,  proportionately  more  dense,  firm 
'and  compact  than  that  of  lower  or  savage  ones.  It  is  well 
known  that  the  brain  of  the  child  in  comparison  to  that  of 
the  adult  is  remarkable  for  its  softness  and  want  of  density, 
owing  to  the  greater  percentage  of  water  it  contains.  The 
microscopic  peculiarities  of  the  brain,  the  commencement 
of  very  indistinct  fibres,  the  difference  between  gray  and 
white  matter,  the  large  blood-supply,  the  furrows,  etc.,  only 
become  recognizable  in  the  course  of  time  and  in  pro- 
portion as  the  intellectual  power  increases.  Conversely, 
as  the  brain  grows  older  and  the  intellectual  power  declines, 
the  gray  substance  absorbs  more  water  and  the  brain  re- 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


215 


turns  to  a condition  similar  to  that  of  childhood.  In  doing 
so,  the  brain  of  old  people  subsides  as  a rule  into  a state  of 
atrophy  and  shriveling-up  ; gaps  are  formed  between  the 
convolutions  which  formerly  were  close  together,  and  these 
gaps  become  filled  with  water  ; the  substance  of  the  brain 
itself  becomes  more  tenacious,  the  color  deeper  gray,  the 
blood-supply  less,  and  the  convolutions  become  smaller. 
The  weight  of  the  brain,  having  rapidly  increased  up  to 
the  tw'enty-fifth  year  of  life,  and  having  reached  its  maxi- 
mum volume  between  the  age  of  forty  and  fifty,  now  begins 
to  fall  off.  Everybody  knows  that  in  keeping  with  what 
wre  have  said,  reason  comes  with  years,  and  also  departs 
with  years. 

“ The  greatest  thinker  of  his  age,”  says  Tuttle,  “ may  in 
one  hour’s  illness  lose  all  his  intelligence  ; in  advanced  age 
he  enters  a second  childhood,  as  helpless  and  simple  as  the 
first.  With  the  decay  of  the  body  decays  also  the  reason, 
and  with  the  last  breath  it  expires,  the  same  as  a lamp  does 
v'ithout  oil,  flickering  feebly.”  This  is  exactly  the  reverse 
of  what  would  happen  if,  as  so  many  think,  the  spirit  were 
a thing  independent  of  the  body,  and  the  spiritual  powers 
increased  in  proportion  as  the  body  drew  nearer  to  its 
dissolution. 

From  wffiat  has  already  been  said  it  may  readily  be  in- 
ferred that  the  proportionate  thickness  of  the  gray  matter 
is  of  the  highest  importance  in  connection  wdth  intellectual 
capacity,  and  this  thickness  varies  very  much  among  ani- 
mals and  men.  Thus,  Dr  J.  Jessen*  perceived  to  his  great 
surprise  that  the  brain  of  a female  idiot,  called  Nasmer, 
twenty -three  years  old,  showed  numerous  well-developed 
convolutions  on  the  surface,  but  he  soon  found  the  solution 
of  the  difficulty  when,  on  dissecting  the  brain,  he  saw  that 
the  gray  matter  had  become  atrophied,  apparently  from 
disease  contracted  in  early  childhood,  and  consequently  had 
become  very  thin  and  narrow.  Jessen’ s researches  also 

* Untersuchungen  Uber  die  Beziehung  zwischen  Grosshirn  und  Geistes stoning, 
Archiv  fur  Psychiatric , 1875  Vol.  IV,  Part.  3. 


2l6 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


prove  that  a deficiency  of  superficial  development  of  gray 
matter,  brought  about  by  the  smallness  of  the  cranium, 
may  be  made  up  for  by  a greater  development  in  thickness. 
This  in  itself  explains  — apart  from  many  other  compen- 
sating agencies  — how  it  is  that  a comparatively  small  brain 
may  exceed  in  mental  power  a comparatively  large  one, 
just  as  a small  nose  may  exceed  a large  one  in  olfactory 
power.  This  also  seems  to  explain,  at  least  partially,  the 
capacity  for  intellectual  performances  of  some  animals,  such 
as  dogs  and  others,  which  are  possessed  of  comparatively 
small  and  otherwise  less  perfectly  developed  brains. 

Similar  results  may  be  looked  for  from  differences  in  the 
chemical  composition  of  the  brain,  a matter  about  which, 
up  to  the  present  time,  very  little  trustworthy  information 
has  been  supplied.  But  it  is  known  that  the  brain  of 
children,  old  men  and  animals,  compared  with  that  of 
adults,  is  very  poor  in  those  peculiar  phosphoric  fatty  or 
fat-like  substances  which  play  so  great  a part  in  the  chem- 
ical composition  of  the  central  portions  of  the  nervous 
system,  and  are  on  the  whole  found  in  greater  quantity  in 
proportion  as  the  animal  or  the  man  stands  higher  in  the 
intellectual  scale.  From  the  more  recent  investigations  of 
Borsarelli  it  appears  that  the  average  amount  of  phosphates 
in  the  brain  is  far  greater  than  had  been  supposed,  and  that 
among  all  the  organs  of  the  body  the  brain  contains  by  far 
the  greatest  amount  of  phosphates,  twice  as  much,  for  in- 
stance, as  muscle.  Hence  the  great  proportion  of  free 
phosphoric  acid  and  of  alkaline  phosphates  in  brain-ash. 
This  observation  is  confirmed  and  supplemented  by  the 
researches  of  Dr.  H.  Byasson,  which  have  shown  that 
wearisome  intellectual  labor  is  followed  by  the  presence  of 
considerable  quantities  of  alkaline  phosphates  and  sulphates 
in  the  urine.  Dr.  L’Heritier  has  also  shown  that  in  old 
age  and  in  a state  of  idiocy  the  phosphorus  contained  in 
the  brain  is  but  one-half  in  quantity  of  what  it  used  to  be, 
and  recedes  in  point  of  fact  to  the  proportion  contained  in 
the  brain  of  an  infant.  Violent  passion  or  excitement  leads 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


217 


to  an  accession  of  alkaline  phosphates  (originating-  from 
the  brain  and  nerves)  in  the  urine,  while  conversely  a 
decrease  of  these  substances  is  noticeable  when  there  are 
functional  disturbances  in  the  activity  of  the  brain.  These 
facts  place  it  beyond  doubt  that  the  phosphoric  compounds 
present  in  the  brain  have  a special  significance,  and  suggest 
the  conjecture  that  there  exists  some  definite  ratio  between 
these  and  intellectual  work.  They  show  further  that  the 
literary  outcry  raised  at  the  time  over  Moleschott’s  well- 
known  phrase  : ‘ ‘ Without  phosphorus  no  thought !”  merely 
proved  the  scientific  ignorance  of  the  criers.  They  also 
bring  to  our  knowledge  the  important  fact  that  all  foods 
containing  phosphorus  in  the  form  of  lecithine  (which  is  a 
component  of  brain-substance)  are  specially  devoted  to 
make  up  for  the  substance  wasted  by  intellectual  work,  and 
that  the  nerve-strengthening  power  of  an  article  of  food 
increases  with  the  amount  of  phosphorus  present  within  its 
nitrogenous  components. 

When  all  these  facts  are  borne  in  mind,  it  becomes  clear 
that  the  intellectual  value  of  a brain  depends  not  merely  on 
its  absolute  or  relative  size,  mass,  and  weight,  but  on  quite 
a host  of  morphological,  histological,  chemical  and  physical 
circumstances,  the  accurate  valuation  of  which  presents  se- 
rious difficulties  in  each  instance.  But  there  is  yet  another 
coefficient  to  take  into  account,  and  one  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance, too,  which,  as  a rule,  is  wont  to  be  more  or  less 
overlooked  in  judging  this  momentous  question  ; and  this 
is  the  great  influence  wrought  on  the  capacity  of  the  mental 
organ  by  breeding , exercise  and  training.  This  influence 
is  so  great  that  a man  with  a comparatively  small  or  badly- 
formed  brain  and  small  talents,  but  who  has  had  these 
talents  thoroughly  cultivated,  may  give  an  impression  of 
greater  intelligence  than  a man  with  an  excellent  brain  and 
many  talents  that  have  not  been  properly  brought  out  and 
trained.  This  is  the  less  surprising  as  we  find  that  the 
same  thing  holds  good  of  the  other  organs  of  our  body, 
which  often  manifest  very  distinct  capabilities  without  a 


2l8 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


corresponding  anatomical  distinction  ; such  organs  are  the 
muscles,  the  larynx  and  the  hand.  Fine  work,  or  that  re- 
quiring technical  ability,  can  no  more  be  performed  by  an 
untrained  hand,  than  a remarkable  intellectual  work  can  be 
performed  by  an  unexercised  or  untrained  brain,  however 
large  or  well-formed  it  may  be.  A large  brain  may  be 
compared  to  a large  house  with  many  rooms  in  which  many 
persons  may  live  ; but  in  which  many  do  not  always  live  ; 
whereas  a small  house  may  readily  be  filled  with  inhabitants. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  brain, 
the  same  as  the  sculptor’s  hand  or  the  singer’s  larynx,  may 
be  improved  and  rendered  more  efficient  by  practice  and 
use.  All  anatomists  who  have  had  frequent  opportunities 
of  dissecting  human  brains,  agree  in  saying  that  the  brains 
of  learned  men,  of  thinkers,  poets  and  persons  who  have 
done  much  intellectual  work,  are  denser,  firmer,  more  con- 
voluted and  generally  better  developed  in  every  way  than 
those  of  ordinary  persons.  Nay,  we  are  led  to  infer,  from 
the  important  observations  and  measurements  made  by  the 
famous  physician  and  anthropologist  Professor  Broca  on 
skulls  in  Paris  cemeteries,  that  the  influence  of  civilization 
and  of  advancing  culture  alone  had  availed  to  cause  a con- 
siderable increase  in  the  perimeter  of  the  skull,  that  is  a 
growth  of  the  brain,  in  the  course  of  a few  centuries  ; and 
also  that  the  brains  of  persons  belonging  to  the  higher 
classes,  who  are  more  engaged  in  mental  work,  have  as  a 
rule  a greater  circumference  than  the  brains  of  those  be- 
longing to  the  lower  classes  which  are  rather  employed  in 
manual  labor.  This  law  of  growth  of  the  brain,  pari  passu 
with  increased  intellectual  activity,  may  be  illustrated  also 
in  the  animal  world.  According  to  the  views  of  the  famous 
American  palaeontologist  Prof.  O.  C.  Marsh,  all  the  mam- 
mals of  the  tertiary  age  had  comparatively  small  brains  ; 
and  a gradual  advance  can  be  shown  from  that  time  forward 
in  the  size  as  well  as  in  the  formation  of  the  upper  parts  oi 
the  brain.  The  same  law  apparently  holds  good  for  reptiles 
and  birds,  from  the  mesozoic  age  down  to  the  present  time. 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


219 


The  birds  of  the  cretaceous  period  had  brains  that,  com- 
pared with  their  bodies,  were  only  one-third  the  size  of 
those  of  their  descendants  now  living,  while  the  dinosauria 
of  the  jurassic  age  had  crania  which  were  far  smaller  in 
comparison  to  those  of  any  reptiles  now  existing. 

The  observations  of  Professor  Broca  fully  agree  with  the 
fact  known  long  since,  that  the  skull  and  the  brain  are  the 
only  parts  of  the  body  which  among  people  who  lead  an 
active  intellectual  life,  continue  to  grow  and  to  increase  in 
mass  after  the  rest  of  the  body  has  left  off  growing,  that  is 
to  say,  right  up  to  the  fortieth  year  and  even  beyond. 

The  further  observation  of  Broca,  that  the  increase  in  the 
Parisian  skulls  was  as  a rule  less  in  the  brain  as  a whole 
than  in  the  prosencephalon  or  forepart  of  the  brain,  is  like- 
wise borne  out  by  earlier  observations  and  measurements, 
which  seem  to  show  that  an  increase  of  the  sinciput  and  a 
simultaneous  flattening  of  the  occiput,  or  a throwing  for- 
ward of  the  whole  cranium  with  a simultaneous  widening  in 
the  middle  region,  are  the  chief  result  of  the  fact  of  the 
brain  having  been  developed  by  civilization  in  course  of 
time.  Abbe  Frere’s  fine  collection  of  skulls  belonging  to  all 
the  centuries  of  our  era,  recently  bequeathed  to  the  Anthro- 
pological Museum  of  Paris,  shows  the  different  phases  of 
this  increasing  development. 

Broca’s  observations  further  agree  to  a nicety  with  the 
well-known  experience  according  to  which  the  forehead 
and  its  adjacent  parts  are,  as  a rule,  less  developed  among 
the  lower  classes  of  the  population  than  among  the  higher, 
and  that  there  exists  also  a very  marked  difference  in  the 
circumference  of  the  skull.  The  best  proof  of  this  is  yielded 
by  the  common  experience  of  hatters  and  cap-makers,  that 
the  educated  classes  on  an  average  take  larger  hats  and 
caps  than  do  the  uneducated,  and  also,  as  shown  by  the 
observations  of  Professor  Ranke,  that  there  is  a marked 
difference  in  the  average  size  of  the  brain  between  town 
and  country,  this  difference  being  decidedly  in  favor  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  towns. 


220 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


The  largest  known  brains  (excepting  those  enlarged  by- 
disease)  have  belonged  to  men  who  distinguished  them- 
selves in  their  lifetime  by  remarkable  mental  ability.  While 
the  average  normal  weight  of  the  human  brain  is  three 
pounds,  the  brain  of  Ciivier,  the  famous  and  ingenious 
naturalist,  weighed  nearly  four.  One  of  the  largest  known 
brains,  according  to  the  statement  of  Prof.  Broca,  who 
made  an  exact  measurement  of  the  skull,  belonged  to  our 
great  poet  Schiller.  Next  to  his,  if  the  statements  relating 
to  them  are  accurate,  come  the  crania  or  brains  of  Byron , 
Cromwell,  Napoleon  I,  etc.  There  is,  nevertheless,  no  lack 
of  reports  on  the  brains  of  learned  men,  which  were  scarcely, 
if  at  all,  larger  than  the  average,  and  in  which  this  relative 
deficiency  may  have  been  compensated  by  other  advantages 
or  by  the  industry  and  painstaking  of  their  owners. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  weight  of  the  brain  of  born  idiots 
or  imbeciles  is  as  a rule  far  below  the  average.  Tiedemann 
weighed  the  brains  of  three  full-grown  idiots,  and  found  the 
weight  in  all  three  varying  between  one  and  two  pounds. 
Dr.  Wilder  actually  found  that  the  brain  of  an  idiotic 
woman,  of  forty-two  years  of  age,  weighed  only  330  gram- 
mes, and  that  of  an  idiot  boy,  twelve  years  of  age,  weighed 
only  260  grains,  (10.6  oz.  troy  and  8.3  oz.  avoirdupois.) 
Persons  whose  heads  are  less  than  sixteen  inches  in  circum- 
ference, are  invariably  imbecile  or  weak-minded.  “An 
exceptional  smallness  of  head  is  always  found  in  idiotcy,” 
says  Valentin.  The  famous  poet  Lenau  became  insane  and 
died  in  idiotcy  ; his  brain,  atrophied  and  ruined  by  dis- 
ease, weighed  only  two  pounds  eight  ounces.  According 
to  Parchappe  ( Comptes  Rendus  du  31  juillet,  1848)  the 
gradual  falling-off  of  reason  in  insanity  is  connected  with 
the  gradual  decay  of  the  brain.  Drawing  an  average  from 
782  cases,  he  proved  numerically  that  the  comparative  de- 
crease of  weight  of  the  brain  was  proportionate  to  the 
intensity  of  the  intellectual  disturbance. 

Almost  all  great  mountain  ranges  harbor  in  deep  and 
damp  valleys  an  unfortunate  race  of  men,  or  rather  semi- 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


221 


men,  whose  whole  existence  is  rather  brutish  than  human. 
They  are  repulsive,  dirty,  deformed  beings,  with  very  small 
or  else  excessively  large  heads,  very  largely  developed 
jaws,  badly  shaped  angular  ape-like  skulls,  low  small  fore- 
heads, protuberant  abdomens,  weak  legs,  bent  carriage, 
very  slight  sensibility,  and  they  are  but  rarely  able  to  utter 
articulated  sounds.  None  but  alimentary  and  sexual  appe- 
tites, and  digestive  and  generative  capacities  are  developed 
in  them.  Who  on  a mountain  journey  has  not  seen  these 
cretins , standing  stupid  and  indifferent  with  blank  eyes  in 
the  road,  or  crouching  at  the  doors  of  huts  ? The  existence 
of  this  horrible  anomaly  in  the  human  race  results  from  a 
defect  of  brain  which  is  mostly  congenital.  A commission 
appointed  ad  hoc  by  the  Sardinian  government  issued  some 
time  since  a very  exact  and  detailed  report  on  the  cretins, 
in  which  it  was  stated  that  in  all  cretins  a faulty  formation 
of  the  cranium  and  a defective  or  faulty  development  of  the 
brain  are  to  be  found.  The  same  truth  appears  from  Prof. 
Virchow’s  classical  researches,  which  have  shown  that  Cre- 
tinism arises  from  a defective  formation  of  the  cranium  and 
rests  on  a defective  and  faulty  formation  of  the  brain,  caused 
by  an  early  ossification  of  the  sutures  of  the  brain,  the  de- 
velopment being  therefore  checked  as  a whole  or  in  certain 
directions.  Dr.  Knolz  observed  in  corroboration  of  this 
that  cretins  remain  children  even  to  their  greatest  age  and 
keep  doing  everything  that  children  are  wont  to  do. 
“ While  I was  studying  the  most  important  stages  of  the 
development  of  cretins,”  says  Baillarger,  “ I found  that  the 
general  form  of  the  body  and  of  the  limbs  remained  equal 
to  that  of  very  young  children,  and  that  cretins  also  pre- 
served the  tastes  and  desires  of  childhood.  Vrolik  of 
Amsterdam  has  published  the  results  of  a dissection  of  a 
nine-year-old  cretin  boy,  who  died  on  the  Abendberg. 
( Verhandl.  der  koninglijken  Akademie  der  Wetenschapen, 
1854.)  In  this  boy  the  mental  development  was  so  small 
that  he  had  only  learned  to  utter  a few  words.  The  crani- 
um was  small  and  oblique,  the  forehead  narrow,  the  back 


222 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


of  the  head  flattened  ; then,  again,  the  convolutions  were 
few  and  imperfect,  the  sulci  shallow,  the  brain  asym- 
metric, with  both  the  cerebrum  and  cerebellum  imperfectly 
developed,  and  the  lateral  ventricles  expanded  by  water. 
In  similar  fashion  the  dissection  of  the  body  of  an  imbecile 
girl  of  twenty-nine  years  of  age  — who  had  been  in  that 
state  from  her  earliest  childhood,  who  could  neither  read 
nor  white,  and  who  died  of  inflammation  of  the  lungs  — 
revealed  a symmetrical  atrophy  (shriveling)  of  both  the 
posterior  lobes  of  the  cerebrum,  so  that  they  were  two 
inches  too  short,  and  that  the  cerebellum  projected  an  inch 
and  a half  beyond  them. 

The  nature  of  the  physical  and  corresponding  mental 
differences  that  exist  between  the  various  human  races,  or 
species  of  mankind,  are  so  well  known  that  only  a brief 
mention  of  them  is  requisite.  Who  has  not  seen  either  in 
reality  or  in  a picture  the  narrow  sloping  skull,  recalling 
that  of  the  ape,  of  the  African  negro,  and  compared  it  in 
thought  with  the  noble  and  broad  cranial  expansion  of  the 
Caucasian  ? And  who  does  not  know  the  innate  mental 
inferiority  of  the  black  race,  and  how  it  is  and  must  ever 
remain  as  an  infant  compared  to  the  white  ? 

The  brain  of  the  negro  is  smaller,  more  brutal,  less  con- 
voluted than  that  of  the  European,  although  it  is  not,  as 
many  think,  the  smallest  in  existence,  seeing  that  Australi- 
ans, Carribbeans,  Bushmen,  Hindoos,  aborigines  of  Peru, 
etc.,  have  considerably  smaller  crania.  For,  while  the  av- 
erage capacity  of  the  cranium  is  ninety  cubic  inches  in  the 
white  races,  some  Hottentot  and  negro  crania  have  been 
found  with  a capacity  of  from  sixty-five  to  sixty-three,  and 
some  Hindoo  crania  fall  as  low  as  forty-six  cubic  inches. 
This  approaches  very  nearly  to  that  of  the  highest  cranial 
capacity  of  the  gorilla , the  largest  of  the  anthropoid  apes, 
which  reaches  thirty-four  cubic  inches.  Among  the  Car- 
ribbeans and  Hindoos  the  average  weight  of  the  brain  barely 
exceeds  two  pounds.  The  ancient  Egyptians,  despite  their 
high  culture,  had,  as  a rule,  comparatively  small  heads, 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


223 


while  the  Esquimaux,  with  an  average  capacity  of  eighty- 
six  cubic  inches,  approach  the  normal  volume  of  the  cul- 
tured European  races.  According  to  Wallace,  individual 
Esquimaux  skulls  have  been  found  which  are  scarcely  in- 
ferior to  the  largest  European  ones.  The  Peruvians  and 
Mexicans — who  became  highly  civilized  and  cultured  long 
before  any  other  American  nation  — had  smaller  brains 
than  the  rough  barbarous  American  Indians,  who  were 
partly  subdued  by  them. 

These  facts — together  with  the  circumstance  that  in 
some  French  caves  belonging  to  the  pre-historic  Stone- 
Age  (as  in  the  Cro-Magnon  cave,  or  in  the  “ Caverne  de 
l’homme  mort”)  ancient  pieces  of  skulls  of  the  Caucasian 
type  have  been  found,  some  of  which  exceed  the  present 
French  skull  in  circumference  and  capacity — show  how 
little  the  mere  proportion  of  cranial  development  is  a relia- 
ble measure  of  the  intellectual  value  of  a brain  or  of  its 
mental  capacity,  if  size  alone  be  considered  without  refer- 
ence to  other  conditions.  But  if  it  be  insufficient  as  a 
standard  of  capacity  for  work,  it  is  still  less  to  be  taken  as 
a safe  guide  to  go  by  in  determining  the  nature  of  the  work 
itself,  the  performance  of  which  does  not  depend  on 
breeding  and  formation  alone,  but  also  on  the  important 
influence  of  the  external  conditions  of  life.  Of  what  use, 
for  instance,  is  his  comparatively  large  brain  to  the  Esqui- 
maux— -assuming  the  other  conditions  of  form,  structure, 
and  composition  to  correspond  to  its  size  — seeing  that  in 
his  home  of  eternal  ice  and  snow  he  is  bereft  of  the  very 
possibility  of  developing  his  talents  ? How  could  a similar 
privilege  benefit  the  naked  dweller  of  the  tropics,  who,  on 
the  one  hand,  is  favored,  and  on  the  other  rendered  indo- 
lent by  the  climate  ? What  advantage  could  a day-laborer, 
or  a peasant,  derive  from  his  large  and  well-formed  brain, 
if  compelled  to  spend  his  life  under  the  pressure  of  constant 
drudgery,  far  away  from  the  intellectual  impulses  of  civili- 
zation ? In  what  way  could  that  pre  historic  denizen  of 
caves  benefit  by  his  intellectual  ability,  ample  though  it 


224 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


may  have  been,  seeing  that  the  circumstances  in  which  he 
was  placed,  rendered  its  development  impossible?  Or, 
looking  at  the  animal  world,  what  is  the  benefit  to  the  dol- 
phin of  his  large  brain  and  of  his  apparently  corresponding 
intelligence,  as  it  betrays  itself  in  his  large,  thoughtful  eyes, 
seeing  that  the  element  in  which  he  is  compelled  to  live, 
and  the  clumsy  form  of  his  body,  are  a bar  to  all  further 
development  of  his  talents  ? And  what  is  the  use  of  the 
possession  of  a still  larger  brain  to  the  elephant,  since  he 
lacks  that  differentiation  of  limbs  and  larynx,  which  has 
given  man  so  great  a supremacy  over  the  animal  world  in 
his  assuming  an  upright  position  and  originating  articulate 
speech  ? All  these  examples,  however,  are  mere  exceptions 
which  do  not  upset  the  rules  that  are  based  on  countless 
facts,  and  their  explanation  probably  depends  on  collateral 
circumstances  as  yet  unknown  to  us. 

Anatomy  also  bears  out  our  contention  about  the  neces- 
sary connection  between  the  brain  and  the  soul  in  the 
well-known  experiments  of  vivisection  performed  by  phys- 
iologists on  the  brains  of  living  animals, — which  experiments 
defy  all  contradiction.  The  most  famous  among  these 
experiments  are  those  of  the  French  physiologist  Flour ens, 
who  experimented  on  animals,  whose  physical  consti- 
tution enables  them  to  endure  considerable  injuries  to 
cranium  and  brain.  He  cut  away  the  upper  portions  of 
the  brain,  layer  by  layer,  one  after  another,  and  it  is  not 
saying  too  much  to  assert  that  as  the  layers  disappeared  one 
by  one,  the  mental  faculties  of  the  animals  diminished  at 
the  same  time  and  eventually  disappeared  altogether. 
Thus  Flourens  succeeded  in  reducing  fowls  to  a condition 
in  which  every  mental  function  and  every  capacity  of 
receiving  sensational  impressions  or  of  performing  any 
conscious  action  were  completely  annihilated,  and  yet 
physical  life  went  on.  The  animals  remained  motionless 
at  any  spot  in  which  they  were  placed,  as  though  they  were 
in  a deep  sleep ; they  responded  to  no  external  stimulus, 
and  were  kept  alive  by  artificial  feeding ; they  led,  as  it 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


225 


were,  a mere  vegetable  existence.  Thus  they  remained 
alive  for  months  and  years,  and  increased  in  weight  and 
size  of  the  body.  Similar  experiments  have  been  success- 
fully performed  on  higher  animals,  that  is  to  say,  on 
mammals.  “If  the  cerebral  hemispheres  of  a mammal 
are  cut  away  piecemeal,”  says  Valentin,  “the  mental 
activity  descends  all  the  deeper,  the  further  the  quantitative 
loss  extends.  As  a rule,  when  the  ventricles  are  reached, 
complete  unconsciousness  supervenes.”  What  stronger 
proof  of  the  connection  between  mind  and  brain  can  there 
exist,  than  that  of  the  anatomist’s  scalpel,  cutting  the  mind 
away  piece  by  piece? 

This  connection  is  fully  as  much  corroborated  by  physi~ 
ological  examples  — that  is  to  say,  by  examples  taken 
from  life,  — as  it  is  by  anatomical  facts.  By  means  of  the 
nervous  system,  which  radiates  from  the  brain  and  which 
must  in  some  measure  be  regarded  as  the  controller  of  all 
organic  functions,  the  brain  superintends  the  whole  organ- 
ism and  throws  back  upon  the  furthest  points  thereof  the 
impressions  it  receives  from  without,  whether  they  be  of  a 
physical  or  a psychical  nature.  This  is  known  well  enough, 
particularly  in  connection  with  the  emotions.  We  grow 
pale  with  fear,  we  get  red  with  anger  or  with  shame.  In 
joy  the  eyes  glitter,  the  pulse  beats  more  quickly  in  the 
excitement  of  gladness,  fright  brings  on  a sudden  swoon, 
and  vexation  causes  an  efflux  of  gall.  The  mere  thought 
of  a nauseous  thing  will  cause  sudden  vomiting  ; the  sight 
of  an  appetizing  dish  induces  the  rapid  secretion  of  saliva 
in  great  quantity.  A mother’s  milk  is  in  a short  time  so 
altered  by  emotion  — as,  for  instance,  by  a sudden  fright — 
that  it  may  do  the  child  the  most  serious  injury.  The  fear 
of  death  turns  the  hair  white  from  the  same  reasons  which 
under  other  circumstances  bring  about  this  result  far  more 
slowly,  simply  as  the  consequence  of  increasing  age.  It  is 
an  interesting  fact  that  intellectual  work  not  only  increases 
the  desire  for  food,  but  also  raises  the  temperature  and  the 
amount  of  carbonic  acid  given  out  from  the  body  as  a 


226 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


product  of  metabolic  activity.  Thus,  as  we  mentioned 
before,  the  quantity  of  phosphoric  compounds  which  appear 
in  the  urine  as  products  of  nervous  waste,  increases  very 
much  after  violent  mental  excitement,  emotion,  etc.,  and 
grows  much  less  when  the  activity  of  the  brain  is  hemmed 
in.  People  of  a sanguine  temperament  live  quicker  and  die 
earlier  than  others,  because  the  stronger  mental  excitation 
of  the  nervous  system  adds  to  matabolism  and  exhausts 
life  more  rapidly.  On  the  other  hand,  phlegmatic  persons 
live  longer.  Short  necked  people  are  more  lively  and  pas- 
sionate, long-necked  passive  and  quiet,  because  in  the 
latter  the  blood-wave  rushing  to  the  brain  is  further  from 
the  heart  — the  centre  and  cause  of  its  movement' — than  in 
the  former.  Parry  succeeded  in  controlling  cases  of  insan- 
ity by  means  of  a compression  of  the  carotid  artery,  and 
according  to  Fleming’s  experiments  {Brit.  Rev.,  April, 
1855)  this  manipulation  immediately  causes  sleep  and  fever- 
ish dreams  in  healthy  persons.  More  accurately  even  than 
in  men  may  the  character  be  estimated  in  animals,  such  as 
horses  and  dogs,  by  the  length  of  their  necks.  Great  intel- 
lectual knowledge  and  power  exercise,  on  their  part,  a 
strengthening  and  sustaining  influence  on  the  body,  through 
the  agency  of  the  nervous  system,  and  Alibert  mentions  as 
a frequent  observation  of  physicians  that  a disproportionately 
large  number  of  old  men  are  found  among  the  learned. 
Conversely,  the  most  varied  physical  conditions  are  directly 
reflected  in  the  mind.  What  an  immense  influence  does 
not  the  secretion  of  gall  exercise  on  mental  disposition  ! 
Degeneration  of  the  ovaries  causes  satyriasis  and  nympho- 
mania ; any  affection  of  the  sexual  organs  often  causes  an 
uncontrollable  desire  to  murder  or  to  commit  other  crimes. 
How  often  is  hypocrisy  in  religion  connected  with  excess 
of  sensual  desires  ! etc. 

Finally,  pathology,  the  science  of  disease,  abounds  in 
the  most  striking  facts,  and  teaches  us  that  no  serious  ma- 
terial or  functional  derangement  of  the  parts  of  the  brain 
concerned  in  the  function  of  thought  can  occur,  without 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


227 


corresponding  injuries  to  the  mind.  Whenever  such  a 
case  does  happen,  it  is  only  when  the  lesion  is  entirely  con- 
fined to  one  cerebral  hemisphere,  and  the  other  hemisphere 
assumes,  as  it  were,  a vicarious  trust.*  The  stories  about 
men  who  remained  uninjured  in  their  reason  when  both 
sides  of  the  brain  were  destroyed  or  diseased,  are  mere 
fables.  Inflammation  of  the  brain  brings  on  delusions  and 
insanity  ; effusion  of  blood  on  the  brain  causes  stupefaction 
and  complete  unconciousness,  pressure  on  the  brain  occa- 
sions mental  weakness,  idiotcy,  etc.  Who  has  not  beheld 
the  painful  sight  of  a child  suffering  from  water  on  the 
brain  ? Mad  people,  and  people  who  are  mentally  diseased, 
always  have  diseased  brains,  sometimes  from  direct  brain- 
lesion,  sometimes  as  a reflex  from  some  other  diseased 
bodily  organ,  and  by  far  the  greater  number  of  physicians 
and  medical  psychologists  now  hold  that  a physical  in- 
jury, and  more  especially  one  of  the  brain,  lies  at  the  root 
of  all  psychical  or  mental  diseases,  or  is  connected  with 
them,  even  though  the  latter  may  not  in  all  cases  be  per- 
ceptible to  our  senses,  owing  to  the  imperfection  of  our 
diagnostic  appliances.  And  even  those  who  do  not  wholly 
agree  in  this  view  are  compelled  to  admit  at  least  that  no 
mental  disease  can  be  imagined  without  a serious  functional 
disorder.  But  such  functional  disorders  again  cannot  be 
conceived  without  material  disorganization,  whether  it  be 
permanent,  transitive,  or  not  even  noticeable  ; and  if  they 
should  continue  long  they  lead  to  anatomical  changes  in 
the  substance  of  the  brain.  Gayet  (Arch,  de  Physiol.  1875) 
relates  a case  in  which  a man  of  twenty-eight  years  of  age, 
merely  from  a sudden  fright,  became  mentally  diseased  and 

* This  vicarious  action  of  one  hemisphere  in  lieu  of  the  other  does  not  always 
take  place.  Dr.  Meissner  {Wagner  s Archiv  der  H eilkunde,  1861,  vol.  i.)  de- 
scribes a case  of  dropsy  in  one  hemisphere,  originating  in  the  sixth  month  of  life. 
The  patient  lived  to  be  over  seventy-one  years  old,  his  body  was  powerfully 
developed,  but  his  mind  remained  backward,  until  complete  insanity  supervened, 
and  the  man  was  good  for  no  other  avocation  but  that  of  cutting  wood.  Every 
four  weeks  he  had  an  attack  of  epilepsy.  The  weight  of  the  brain  was  only 
twenty-seven  ounces.  The  ventricles  on  the  healthy  side  were  also  slightly 
expanded. 


228 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


died  after  several  months.  The  post  mortem  showed  an 
enormous  reddening  and  softening  of  different  important 
parts  of  the  brain.  Experiments  on  animals  (for  instance 
on  rabbits),  whose  crania  have  been  opened,  have  shown 
that  a sudden  fright  at  once  causes  a whitening  and  con- 
traction of  the  blood-vessels  of  the  pia  mater,  and  also  a 
momentary  contraction  of  the  whole  brain.  (See  Deutsches 
Arcliiv  fur  klin.  Medicin,  vol.  XIV.)  According  to  the 
psychiatrist  Dr.  Wille  ( Versuch  iiber  Seelenstdrunge?i,  1863) 
mental  disorder  consists  only  in  a nervous  disease  of  the 
brain,  and  it  is  a settled  law  that  “morbid  changes  in  the 
gray  matter  of  the  brain  are  always  connected  with  morbid 
phenomena  of  psychical  life,  or  in  other  words,  they  cause 
a morbid  condition  of  the  mind.”  Besides,  even  mere 
functional  or  nutritive  disorders  of  the  nervous  elements  by 
anemia  or  plethora,  by  mixture  of  blood,  by  drunkenness, 
narcotism,  delirium,  bad  food  or  bad  air,  etc.,  bring  on 
mental  disease  or  disturbance  without  any  important  ana- 
tomical change  in  the  brain  becoming  perceptible.  These 
anatomical  changes  are  often,  as  heretofore  stated,  so  very 
slight  that  they  can  only  be  shown  by  the  most  minute 
microscopical  research.  Thus,  Prof.  Heschl,  ( Oesterr . 
Zeitschr.  fur  prakt.  Heilkuyide , 1862)  found  ossified  nerve- 
cells  in  the  gray  layer  of  the  brain  of  a hypochondriac,  and 
Dr.  Leidesdorf  twice  observed  cases  of  rapid  delirium  com- 
bined with  raving  madness,  which  brought  the  patients 
quickly  from  previous  health  to  the  grave.  In  both  cases 
microscopic  investigation  revealed  a very  considerable  in- 
crease of  the  nucleus  in  the  ganglionic  cells  of  the  gray 
matter , while  there  was  nothing  else  essentially  diseased  in 
the  brains,  save  a serous  moistening  throughout  them  and 
their  envelopes. 

A fatty  pigmentary  degeneration  and  softening  of  the 
same  elements  brings  on  what  is  called  dementia  paralytica , 
or  idiotcy,  combined  with  phenomena  of  lesion  generally, 
and  this  is  followed  by  a more  complete  destruction  of  the 
mind  than  is  caused  by  any  other  brain-disease.  But  even 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


229 


without  perceptible  anatomical  changes  of  the  ganglionic 
cells  of  the  grey  matter,  a mere  suspension  of  their  nourish- 
ment by  injury  to  the  blood- supply  or  by  the  hardening 
of  the  cellular  tissues  around  them  suffices  to  bring  about 
the  most  serious  mental  disorders  and  even  incurable 
idiotcy. 

No  one  who  thinks  scientifically  and  values  facts  will 
hold  that  the  well-known  psychiatrist  Griesinger  was 
wrong,  when  he  said,  in  his  lecture  at  the  opening  of  the 
school  of  clinical  psychiatry  at  Zurich  (1863),  that  mental 
diseases  were  nothing  more  than  “symptoms  of  disorders 
of  the  brain  and  nerves.” 

We  should  consider  also  the  well-known  and  unfortu- 
nately too  frequent  transmission  of  mental  diseases,  a 
result  that  can  only  accrue  from  a changed  condition  of  the 
germinal  matter,  and  the  transmission  of  this  material 
condition  to  the  brain  and  nervous  system  of  the  being 
originating  therefrom. 

Physical  lesions  or  injuries  of  the  brain  often  cause 
remarkable  psychical  effects.  It  has  been  credibly  reported 
that  in  St.  Thomas’s  Hospital,  London,  a man  badly  injured 
on  the  head  spoke  in  a foreign  language.  It  was  his  native 
Welsh,  which  he  had  formerly  spoken  at  home,  but  had 
forgotten  in  the  course  of  a thirty  years  stay  in  London. 
Owing  to  the  same  cause  he  had  forgotten  English  entirely. 
The  same  thing  happened  to  a German  American,  Dr. 
Solger,  who,  when  he  died,  held  the  position  of  secretary 
to  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States.  He  had  received  a 
serious  injury  to  the  skull  and  brain  by  a fall  from  his 
horse.  From  that  moment  forward  he  entirely  forgot  his 
English  and  French  (he  had  married  a Frenchwoman), 
and  until  his  death,  which  took  place  shortly  after  the 
fall,  he  spoke  nothing  but  German.  A Parisian  painter, 
Victor  X.,  fell  from  the  balcony  of  a house  and  suffered  a 
concussion  of  the  brain.  He  at  once  forgot  the  names  of 
his  friends  and  of  the  members  of  his  family,  and  only 
remembered  some  letters  out  of  their  names.  On  Sept.  13, 


230 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


1848,  a blaster  named  Phineas  Gage,  residing  at  Cavendish 
in  America,  had  an  iron  rod  driven  through  his  head  by  a 
premature  explosion  while  he  was  tamping.  The  rod 
destroyed  a considerable  portion  of  the  left  cerebral  hemi- 
sphere. After  a long  illness  he  recovered,  but'  his  mind 
and  character  were  so  changed  that  his  friends  said  of  him 
that  he  was  Gage  no  more.  The  balance  between  his 
mental  capacities  and  his  animal  propensities  was  destroyed. 
He  left  his  employment  and,  having  led  the  life  of  a va- 
grant, died  twelve  and  a half  years  after  the  injury;  his  skull 
with  the  iron  rod  may  be  seen  in  the  anatomical  museum 
of  Harvard  University.  (See  Proceedings  of  ihe  Mass. 
Med.  Soc.  1863,  vol.  II,  N.  3,  p.  330.) 

The  well-known  fact  that  mad  delirious  persons  some- 
times recover  consciousness  before  death  and  partly  regain 
the  use  of  their  reason,  is  often  brought  forward  in  support 
of  a spiritualistic  conception  of  the  relationship  between 
brain  and  mind.  It  should,  on  the  contrary,  be  understood 
in  such  cases,  that  the  reason  of  this  remarkable  phenome- 
non is  the  fact  that  the  brain,  having  by  long  illness  and 
general  exhaustion  been  brought  to  the  verge  of  death,  is 
relieved  from  the  troublesome  and  morbid  influences  of  the 
body,  and  this  fact,  if  looked  at  in  that  light,  is  a striking 
confirmation  of  our  position.  But  even  physiologically  this 
remarkable  phenomenon  has  been  explained  by  the  assump- 
tion that  in  such  cases  only  one  hemisphere  of  the  brain  had 
been  diseased,  while  the  other  and  healthy  one  has  gradually 
been  affected,  in  sympathy  with  it,  in  the  same  way  as  for 
instance  in  a stoppage  of  circulation  in  one  finger  the 
corresponding  finger  of  the  other  hand  will  sometimes 
begin  to  ache.  Now  if  death  should  result  in  consequence 
of  the  brain-lesion,  the  hemisphere  that  was  first  affected  and 
most  diseased  naturally  dies  first  while  the  sympathetically 
affected  hemisphere  is  freed  from  the  pressure  that  weighs 
on  it,  and  the  patient  recovers  consciousness  until  the  second 
hemisphere  also  dies. 

Quite  apart  from  all  this,  the  pathological  facts  support- 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


23I 


ing  the  identity  or  necessary  connection  between  brain  and 
mind  are  so  numerous  that  whole  books  or  libraries  might 
be  filled  with  them,  and  to  a great  extent  they  are  accessible 
to  daily  experience  or  to  the  simplest  observation.  In  point 
of  fact,  the  weight  of  this  evidence  has  never  been  denied 
by  thinking  men.  “If  the  blood,”  says  Frederick  the  Great 
in  a letter  to  Voltaire,  written  in  the  year  1775,  “circulates 
too  rapidly  in  the  brain,  as  in  the  case  of  persons  in  a state 
of  drunkenness  or  in  the  paroxysm  of  fever,  the  ideas 
become  confused  and  are  turned  topsy-turvy ; if  there  is  a 
slight  obstruction  in  the  nerves  of  the  brain,  insanity  re- 
sults ; if  a drop  of  water  passes  into  the  cranium,  the  loss 
of  memory  supervenes  ; if  a drop  of  blood  exudes  from  the 
vessels  on  to  the  brain  and  the  nerves  of  reason,  we  en- 
counter at  once  the  cause  of  apoplexy,’’  etc. 

If  the  mind,  as  spiritualists  contend,  be  a thing  independ- 
ent or  self-existent,  and  controlling  or  utilizing  matter,  why 
is  it  so  little  able  to  defend  itself  against  and  repel  these 
attacks?  Why  does  it  yield  or  succumb  to  a blow  on  the 
head,  the  commingling  of  a few  drops  of  blood  with  the 
substance  of  the  brain,  a sunstroke,  a few  inhalations  of 
chloroform,  a few  glasses  of  wine,  or  a few  drops  of  opium, 
prussic  acid,  or  other  poison  ? 

But  enough  of  facts!  All  anthropology,  the  whole  science 
of  man  is  one  continued  proof  of  the  inseparability  of  the 
ideas  of  brain  and  mind.  Let  philosophical  psychologists 
talk  as  they  may  about  the  autonomy  of  the  human  mind 
and  its  independence  of  its  material  substratum,  their  utter- 
ances appear  as  idle  clatter  in  the  light  of  facts.  “ I do  the 
spiritualists  no  injustice,”  says  J.  C.  Fischer  (Z?z>  Freiheit 
des  vienschlichen  Willens,  Leipzig,  1871),  “when  I say 
that  their  deductions  are  one  and  all  most  pitiable  delusions; 
they  only  speak  to  show  that  they  are  too  impotent  to 
bring  forward  a single  positive  proof.  They  will  remain 
impotent  so  long  as  they  continue  their  speculative  labor 
of  Sisyphus,  instead  of  using  the  positive  experimental 
method  of  natural  science,’’  etc. 


232 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


It  was  thought  that  a weighty  argument  had  been  brought 
forward  against  the  materialistic  or  monistic  conception  of 
the  relation  between  brain  and  mind  by  showing  the 
material  simplicity  of  the  organ  of  thought.  The  brain,  it 
was  said,  is  mainly  a soft,  homogeneous  mass,  distinguished 
neither  by  a complicated  structure  and  delicate  formation, 
nor  by  a special  chemical  composition.  How  is  it  possible, 
then,  that  this  simple,  homogeneous  material  can  be  the 
fundamental  cause  of  so  infinitely  delicate  and  complicated 
a machinery  as  is  represented  to  us  in  the  human  or  animal 
mind?  Complicated  forces  and  activities  imply  complicated 
materials  or  combinations  of  matter.  Clearly  the  connection 
is  rather  a loose  and  accidental,  than  a necessary  one  ; the 
mind  exists  by  itself,  independent  of  earthly  matter,  and  is 
but  accidentally  or  for  a brief  space  of  time  connected  with 
the  material  tissue  which  we  call  brain. 

This  whole  objection,  weighty  as  it  may  appear  in  the 
eyes  of  uninstructed  persons,  rests  altogether  on  false 
premises  or  suppositions.  The  brain  is  not  a simple  organ, 
but  is  in  the  highest  degree  composite,  rich  in  structure  and 
delicately  formed,  to  such  an  extent,  too,  that  in  the  whole 
organized  world  there  is  nothing  which  we  can  in  this  re- 
spect compare  with  it.  “To  the  superficial  observer,”  says 
H.  Tuttle,  “the  brain  appears  to  be  only  a homogeneous 
mass  ; on  closer  investigation  its  structure  is  seen  to  be  one 
of  the  most  delicate  organization  and  of  the  highest  per- 
fection.” 

As  regards  first  of  all  this  structure  in  its  broad  outlines, 
a mere  cursory  inspection  of  the  brain  brings  before  our 
eyes  a large  number  of  wonderfully  shaped  and  intricate 
external  forms,  the  physiological  significance  of  which  is 
more  or  less  doubtful,  and  on  its  surface  we  behold  numerous 
irregular,  deep  convolutions,  already  described  heretofore, 
among  which  the  two  principal  components  of  the  brain, 
the  gray  and  the  white,  meet  each  other  at  the  greatest 
possible  number  of  points,  and  the  exact  activity,  form  and 
quantity  of  which,  as  we  have  seen,  stands  in  a very  definite 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


233 


relationship  to  mental  and  intellectual  activity.  The  variety 
and  curious  nomemclature  of  these  individual  parts  of  the 
brain  show  with  what  various  and  peculiar  forms  we  have 
here  to  deal.  “In  the  brain,’’  says  Prof.  Huschke  in  his 
famous  work,  ( Schadel , Him  und  Seele  des  Menschen), 
“we  find  mountains  and  valleys,  bridges  and  water-courses, 
beams  and  arches,  pins  and  hooks,  claws  and  ramshorns, 
trees  and  sheaves,  harps  and  trumpets,  etc.  No  one  knows 
the  significance  of  these  wonderful  shapes.’’  If,  in  this 
respect,  we  compare  the  brain  with  other  organs  of  our 
body,  we  find  that  the  latter  are  so  far  beneath  the  former 
that  it  becomes  impossible  to  speak  of  an  analogy  between 
them.  We  arrive  at  a similar  result  in  comparing  their 
relative  blood  supply.  As  we  have  already  mentioned,  the 
brain  among  all  the  organs  of  the  body  is  the  one  to  which 
by  far  the  largest  quantity  of  blood  goes  from  the  heart, 
and  in  which  therefore  the  metabolism  proceeds  more 
swiftly  and  more  actively  than  anywhere  else.  It  has,  in 
fact,  been  shown  by  experiment  that  among  all  the  organs 
of  the  body  the  brain  has  the  highest  temperature,  and  that 
about  one-third  of  the  entire  process  of  oxidation  of  the 
body  is  needed  in  the  brain  to  maintain  the  fire  that  burns 
unceasingly  in  it  during  waking  hours.  Corresponding  to 
this,  the  anatomical  activity  and  arrangement  of  the  blood- 
vessels and  the  large  blood  sinuses  within  the  skull  are 
such  as  are  found  in  no  other  part  of  the  body,  and  the 
blood  circulation  within  the  brain  is  so  great  that  a cross- 
section  of  the  collective  blood-vessels  of  the  neck  is  three 
times  as  great  in  extent  as  a cross-section  of  the  large 
blood-vessels  of  the  thigh,  although  the  latter  is  far  more 
massive  and  includes  moreover  the  whole  of  the  blood- 
vessels of  the  leg.  Among  the  individual  parts  of  the  brain 
the  gray  substance,  or  the  peculiar  seat  of  mental  processes, 
is  comparatively  the  richest  in  blood,  for  these  processes 
require  the  most  rapid  metabolism  and  the  most  intense 
oxidation.  Hence,  every  disturbance  in  this  necessary 
interchange  between  the  blood  and  the  substance  of  the  brain 


234 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


is  at  once  attended  with  a disturbance  of  consciousness  or 
of  other  mental  activities. 

Problems  far  greater,  and  much  more  difficult  to  solve, 
than  those  of  the  general  anatomy  of  the  brain,  make 
their  appearance  when  we  come  to  subject  it  to  a closer 
microscopical  examination.  Yet  this  much  we  know  above 
everything  else,  that  the  brain  is  no  simple  homogeneous 
mass,  as  persons  imperfectly  instructed  imagine,  but  that, 
like  the  nervous  system  generally,  it  consists  partly  of  an 
almost  innumerable  array  of  very  delicate  primitive  or 
nerve-fibres , and  partly  of  an  equally  innumerable  host  of 
nerve-cells  or  ganglionic  centres.  The  former  are  so 
minute  that  the  aggregate  thickness  of  six  hundred  of  them 
does  not  exceed  the  twenty-fourth  part  of  an  inch,  and  the 
total  number  of  them  contained  in  the  body  has  been 
computed  at  from  600  to  1000  millions ; they  are  exceed- 
ingly fine  and  exceedingly  soft  transparent  tubes,  containing 
an  oily,  coagulable  substance  called  nerve-marrow , which 
in  its  turn  consists  of  two  concentric  and  chemically  distinct 
layers,  one  surrounding  the  other  ; the  middle  one  is  the 
axis-cylmder,  and  the  envelope  of  nervous  substance  is  the 
marrow  tube  (white  substance  of  Schwann).  The  nerve- 
cells , nervous  or  gaiiglionic  centres , being  the  second 
histological  element  or  tissue  of  the  nervous  mass,  are 
found  in  vast  quantity,  more  especially  in  the  gray  matter 
of  the  brain  and  spinal  cord  (the  ganglionic  cells  of  the  gray 
external  layer  of  the  brain  alone  being  estimated  at  from 
500  to  1000  millions),  and  having  received  the  impressions 
coming  to  them  from  the  external  world  by  the  fibres,  work 
upon  these  and  change  them  into  reflective  or  volitional 
acts.  These  cells  exhibit  many  peculiarities  and  differences 
of  build,  and  are  disposed  in  no  less  than  from  five  to  seven 
distinct  layers  in  the  gray  envelope  of  the  brain  of  which 
they  form  the  chief  part ; each  layer  in  its  turn  exhibiting 
peculiarly  shaped  cells  of  different  sizes.  The  researches 
of  Prof.  W.  Betz  of  Kieff  ( Centr.-Blattdcr  medic.  Wissen- 
schaften  1881,  N.  11  to  13)  have  shown  that  there  is  a 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


235 


greater  diversity  in  the  grouping  of  the  third  or  pyramidal 
cell-layer  than  elsewhere.  The  same  scientist  thinks  that 
he  has  discovered  that  each  small  portion  of  the  surface  of 
the  human  brain,  whether  formally  marked  off  or  not,  is 
distinguished  by  a peculiarity  of  build,  which  view  agrees 
admirably  with  the  well-known  investigations  of  modern 
scientists  (Ferrier,  Hitzig,  Frisch,  Nodnagel,  etc.)  on  the 
so-called  “centres  of  motion’’  to  be  found  in  the  surface  of 
the  brain. 

As  regards  the  relationship  of  the  ganglionic  centres  to 
the  nerves  or  primitive  fibres,  the  former  are  connected  with 
the  latter  by  each  nerve  ending  in  a cell,  and  from  each 
cell  several  fibres  — at  least  three — are  given  off,  which 
either  go  over  into  the  nervous  system,  or  unite  the  several 
cells  with  each  other.  The  nerves  or  nerve-fibres  may  very 
truly  be  compared  with  the  wires  of  an  electric  telegraph, 
which  convey  news  in  both  directions  alike,  while  the 
ganglionic  centres  may  be  equally  well  compared  with  the 
electric  apparatus  itself,  which  receives  the  impulses  coming 
to  it  from  without  and  gives  them  forth  again,  or  forwards, 
as  it  were,  its  own  telegrams. 

It  is  to  these  cells  or  ganglia  that  we  must  look  for  the 
peculiar  seat  or  anatomical  element  of  our  mental  and  in- 
tellectual activity,  and  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  the 
variety  that  exists  in  their  internal  and  external  form  and 
arrangement  stands  in  a definite  relation  to  the  multiplicity 
of  these  processes.  To  all  appearance  there  are  not  only 
special  cells  or  nervous  centres  for  the  performance  of  the 
actions  of  sensation,  movement,  nutrition,  and  reflection, 
like  a parallel  to  what  we  know  already  of  the  nerves,  but 
there  are  also  such  centres  for  the  different  forms  of  higher 
psychical  activity,  such  as  reason,  imagination,  reflection, 
sense  of  number,  of  space,  of  music,  of  beauty,  etc.,  albeit 
anatomy  has  hitherto  been  unable  to  discover  them,  owing 
to  the  clumsiness  and  imperfection  of  its  appliances.  If  we 
consider  the  enormous  number  (i.  e.  from  500,000,000  to 
1,000,000,000)  of  nerve-cells  that  are  present  in  the  gray 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


236 

layer  of  the  human  brain,  and  from  which  issue  at  least  five 
or  ten  times  as  many  nerves,  uniting  them  with  each  other 
and  with  the  outer  world,  it  must  be  admitted  that  these 
numbers  offer  even  to  the  boldest  imagination  a more  than 
sufficient  perspective  as  an  anatomical  basis  of  all  con- 
ceivable psychical  processes  or  nervous  actions.  If  the 
aggregate  number  of  conceptions  which  are,  or  may  be, 
contained  within  the  brain,  be  set  down  at  200,000 — an 
estimate  very  much  above  the  mark,  seeing  that  our  most 
polished  language  has  at  most  15,000  words,  that  there  are 
very  few  wordless  conceptions,  and  that,  even  supposing 
that  each  conception  might  be  couched  in  four  or  five  dif- 
ferent forms,  we  should  make  up  but  a total  of  100,000  at  the 
most  — it  becomes  plain  that  each  conception  would  have 
from  2500  to  5000  cells  and  from  10,000  to  50,000  fibres 
corresponding  to  it,  assuming,  of  course,  that  those  con- 
ceptions be  uniformly  distributed  over  the  whole  surface  of 
the  two  cerebral  hemispheres.  Now  inasmuch  as  this  is 
certainly  not  the  case,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that,  however 
rich  our  conceptual  life  may  be,  the  number  of  the  nervous 
elements  representing  it  must  yet  greatly  exceed  its  neces- 
sities, and  that  the  brain  possesses  an  enormous  abundance 
of  unoccupied  and  unused  spots  for  the  utilization  of  which 
there  is  no  prospect  whatever.  At  all  events,  the  anatom- 
ical structure  and  disposition  of  the  brain  would  admit  of  a 
very  much  richer  conceptual  life  than  is  as  yet  possessed 
by  the  hnman  mind,  and  this  being  so,  the  enthusiastic 
partisan  of  progress  and  evolution  sees  opened  up  to  him 
the  prospect  of  the  fulfillment  of  his  boldest  hopes  for  the 
future  achievements  of  his  race. 

Taking  all  these  things  into  consideration,  and  remem- 
bering that  the  chemical  composition  of  the  brain  is  not  so 
simple  as  it  was  formerly  thought  to  be,  but  that  very  pe- 
culiarly constituted  bodies,  such  as  cerebrine  and  lecithine, 
are  present  in  it,  and  that  there  are  marked  chemical  dif- 
ferences between  different  parts  of  the  brain,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  materiality  of  the  brain,  whether  regarded 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


237 

under  its  morphological,  histological,  or  chemical  aspects, 
is  by  no  means  fitted  to  serve  as  an  essential  objection  to 
the  materialistic  or  monistic  view  of  the  relation  between 
brain  and  mind. 

Even  assuming  that  if  the  brain  were  not  the  wonderfully 
organized  structure  which  we  have  learned  that  it  is,  and 
that  the  simplicity  of  the  brain-materiality  did  not  contrast 
with  its  achievements,  we  should  yet  have  one  thought  left 
to  reassure  us.  Countless  examples  make  it  plain  that 
Nature  is  able  to  achieve  the  greatest  and  most  wonderful 
results  by  the  simplest  and  least  pretentious  means,  accord- 
ing to  the  way  in  which  she  arranges  the  innermost  condi- 
tions and  motions  of  infinitely  small  and  delicate  materials. 

Why,  even  man  is  able  to  form  out  of  coarse  metal  or 
bits  of  wood,  by  the  aid  of  very  imperfect  tools,  instruments 
that  play  many  tunes,  time-pieces  that  tell  the  hour,  ma- 
chines that  weave,  knit,  sew,  write,  run,  and  outstrip  the 
speed  of  the  swiftest  animals.  In  this  we  see  nothing  mar- 
velous. But  just  put  a savage,  or  a man  who  has  never 
heard  of  mechanics,  in  our  place  ; would  he  not  imagine 
that  these  machines  were  living  things,  moving  by  their 
own  volition  ? and  would  not  one  of  the  imbecile  aborigines 
of  New  Holland  have  as  good  a right,  as  Virchow  remarks, 
to  maintain  that  these  machines  do  not  act  on  mechanical 
principles  as  the  partisans  of  the  spiritualistic  theory  have 
to  maintain  that  the  mind  cannot  be  explained  by  material 
motions  ? Perhaps  the  simile  does  not  run  on  all  fours  and 
may  be  thought  to  prove  nothing  ; perhaps  it  may  only 
point  out  to  us  the  way  of  understanding  that  possibly  the 
mind  may  after  all  be  but  a product  of  material  combina- 
tion. “Nature,”  says  Prof.  Pfliiger,  “ works  with  infinitely 
small  atoms,  and  therefore  can  form  a mechanical  con- 
trivance in  a very  small  space  which  can  play  a million  of 
the  most  varied  tunes,  which  are  exactly  calculated  for  and 
fitted  to  a million  wants  that  may  possibly  arise  in  the 
course  of  a man’s  life.” 

In  this  connection  we  should  also  consider  a marvelous 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


238 

force  that  surpasses  all  imagination,  viz.,  that  of  the  animal 
or  human  seed,  (mentioned  in  a preceding  chapter),  which, 
by  a single  organized  cell  of  such  minuteness  that  it  can 
only  be  seen  through  a microscope,  is  able  to  control  to  a 
certain  extent  the  whole  of  the  physical  and  psychical  life 
of  that  which  has  been  begotten,  by  the  aid  of  the  forces  or 
tendencies  of  motion  communicated  to  it  by  the  begetter. 
And  what  this  one  cell  can  do,  why  should  not  thousands 
of  millions  of  other  similar  or  cognate  forms  be  also  able  to 
do,  though  in  a different  way,  being  connected  together  in 
the  most  wondrous  union  and  composition  ? “ This  fact,” 

forcibly  remarks  Prof.  Hackel  in  his  Generelle  Morphologie 
der  Organisme?i  (1866),  ‘‘gives  us  an  idea  of  the  infinite 
fineness  of  organized  matter  and  the  inconceivable  compli- 
cation of  molecular  movements  in  the  same  state,  which 
neither  the  power  of  observation  of  our  senses  nor  the  power 
of  thought  of  our  reason  fully  enables  us  to  understand.” 

However,  for  the  purpose  of  this  enquiry  it  is  really  quite 
immaterial  whether  and  in  whatever  way  a conception  of 
all  this  be  possible,  or  how  mental  phenomena  arise  from 
material  combinations  or  from  the  activities  of  the  brain. 
It  is  quite  sufficient  to  have  proved  by  facts  the  necessary, 
indissoluble  and  normal  connection  between  the  brain  and 
the  mind. 

The  spiritualistic  philosophers  and  psychologists,  who 
regard  the  mind  as  an  entity,  independent,  self-contained, 
and  but  temporarily  united  to  the  body,  have  sought  to  get 
over  these  facts  in  various  ways,  but,  as  it  appears  to  us, 
invariably  with  an  unfortunate  result.  They  fall  into  con- 
tradiction either  with  themselves,  or  with  the  facts,  or  they 
seek  to  veil  the  clearness  of  the  question  in  a sort  of  half 
mist,  or  they  invent  theories  and  delusions  which  call  for 
compassion  rather  than  refutation.  They  find  themselves 
utterly  unable  to  show  how  it  is  imaginable  or  possible  that 
a thing  purely  spiritual  or  immaterial,  such  as  they  repre- 
sent the  mind  to  be,  can  enter  into  union  with  matter,  can 
act  upon  it,  or  be  acted  upon  by  it.  Absolute  antitheses 


BRAIN  AND  MIND. 


239 


can  never  be  united,  whereas  we  find  brain  and  mind,  body 
and  spirit,  always  in  absolute  and  actual  union.  “ No  phi- 
losophy,” says  David  Strauss  {Alter  und  Neuer  Glaube), 
“ has  ever  explained  nor  will  ever  explain  how  it  is  possible 
_ that  from  a thing  with  dimensions  and  without  thought, 
like  the  human  body,  impressions  could  ever  pass  to  a non- 
thinking thing  without  dimensions,  such  as  the  mind  is 
supposed  to  be  — how  impressions  can  be  returned  from 
the  latter  to  the  former,  and  how  above  all  there  can  be 
any  kind  of  communion  between  the  two.” 

As  a last  resource,  spiritualism  has  hit  upon  the  so-called 
piano-theory , according  to  which  the  mind  stands  in  the 
same  relation  to  the  brain  as  a player  does  to  his  instru- 
ment. There  is  no  escape  through  this  loophole  either. 
Who  has  ever  heard  of  a piano  that  grows  with  its  player, 
that  lives  with  him,  sleeps  with  him,  falls  off  and  becomes 
ill  with  him,  or  by  being  out  of  tune  makes  him  incapable 
of  reflection,  or  continues  to  play  confused  melodies  after 
the  player  has  gone  away,  or  which  can  only  maintain  its 
strength  by  constant  change  of  material  and  a regular  alter- 
nation of  activity  and  rest?  Such  a piano  would  indeed  be 
a remarkably  strange  thing,  apart  from  many  other  diffi- 
culties which  militate  against  that  theory.  To  carry  this 
monstrous  comparison  to  its  logical  ends,  we  must  admit 
the  same  or  a similar  proposition  for  every  other  organ  of 
the  body,  and  assign  a nerve-soul  to  the  nerves,  a muscle- 
soul  to  the  muscles,  a liver-soul  to  the  liver,  etc.,  all  rank 
absurdities,  into  which  it  is  not  worth  while  to  enter  any 
further. 

The  word  “mind”  is  in  reality  nothing  more  than  a 
collective  word  and  a comprehensive  expression  for  the 
whole  of  the  activities  of  the  brain  and  its  several  parts  or 
organs,  just  as  the  word  respiration  or  breathing  is  a col- 
lective word  for  the  activity  of  the  breathing  organs,  or  the 
word  digestion  is  a collective  word  for  the  activity  of  the 
digesting  organ. 

No  doubt,  in  the  case  of  the  brain,  that  highest  and 


240 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


fairest  blossom  of  all  terrestrial  organization,  something 
more  is  meant  than  in  the  case  of  the  organs  of  breathing 
or  digestion  ; we  are  dealing  with  the  highest  achievement 
of  material  combinations,  we  might  say  with  the  intellectu- 
alization  of  matter  and  with  the  life  and  destiny  of  all  that 
is  great  and  noble  among  man’s  achievements  on  earth. 
Everything  comes  from  it,  and  everything  proceeds  out 
of  it.  It  receives  everything,  and  gives  back  everything. 
Who  that  has  thrown  but  a single  glance  at  the  powers  and 
tendencies  of  this  most  wonderful  of  all  organs,  of  which 
unfortunately  so  many  men  scarcely  know  the  proper  use, 
can  refuse  to  endorse  what  Huschke  says  : 

“In  the  brain  lies  the  temple  of  the  highest  that  is  of 
interest  to  us.  Yea,  the  destiny  of  the  whole  human  race 
is  indissolubly  bound  up  in  the  sixty-five  or  seventy  cubic 
inches  of  brain-mass,  and  the  story  of  mankind  is  recorded 
therein,  as  in  a vast  book,  full  of  hieroglyphic  symbols  ! ’ ’ 


Thought. 


Thought  is  a motion  of  matter. — Moleschott. 

As  color  is  to  the  vibrations  of  light,  as  sound  is  to  the  vibrations  of  elastic 
fluids,  so  is  thought  related  to  the  neuro-electrical  vibrations  of  the  brain- 
fibres.—  Huschke. 

Since  man,  a material  being,  actually  thinks,  matter  also  enjoys  the  power  of 
thinking. — Holbach. 

A REASON  for  writing  this  chapter  is  afforded  us  by 
the  well-known  and  well-abused  phrase  of  Karl  Vogt: 
“Thoughts  stand  in  the  same  relation  to  the  brain, 
as  bile  does  to  the  liver  or  urine  to  the  kidneys  ; ’ ’ which 
idea  had,  for  that  matter,  been  uttered  long  before  Vogt  and 
in  an  exactly  similar  fashion  by  the  French  physician  and 
philosopher  Cabanis  (1757  to  1808).  “The  brain,”  said 
he,  “is  destined  for  thought,  as  the  stomach  is  for  digestion, 
or  the  liver  for  secreting  the  bile  from  the  blood,”  etc. 

Without  in  the  least  wishing  to  join  in  the  general  cry  of 
condemnation  which  this  expression  brought  on  its  author 
(although  he  had  introduced  it  with  the  words,  “to  express 
myself  somewhat  coarsely”),  we  yet  cannot  refrain  from 
finding  the  comparison  unsuitable  and  badly  chosen.  Even 
in  looking  at  the  matter  without  the  least  prejudice,  we 
cannot  possibly  find  any  analogy  or  true  resemblance 
between  the  bilious  and  renal  secretions  and  the  process  by 
which  thought  is  produced  in  the  brain. 

Urine  and  bile  are  tangible,  ponderable,  visible  substances, 
and  are  moreover  excreta  or  waste  products  discharged 
from  the  body ; thought  or  thinking,  on  the  other  hand,  is 

(241) 


242 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


no  excretion,  but  an  activity  or  motion  of  the  substances 
and  material  compounds  grouped  together  in  a definite 
manner  in  the  brain.  The  secret  of  thinking  does  not  lie 
in  the  brain  materials  as  such,  but  in  the  special  form  of 
their  combination  and  in  their  co-operation  towards  one 
object  under  the  perfectly  definite  anatomico-physiological 
conditions  which  were  described  in  a former  chapter. 
Thinking  can  and  must  be  regarded  as  a special  mode  of 
general  natural  motion,  which  is  as  characteristic  of  the 
substance  of  the  central  nervous  elements  as  the  motion  of 
contraction  is  of  the  muscle-substance,  or  the  motion  of 
light  is  of  the  universal  ether.  Therefore  understanding  or 
thought  is  not  a substance ; it  is  material  only  in  this  sense 
that  it  is  the  manifestation  of  a material  substratum,  just  as 
heat,  light  and  electricity  are  inseparable  from  their  sub- 
strata. Thinking  a,7id  extension  are  therefore  only  to  be 
regarded  as  two  sides  or  phenomenal  manifestations  of  one 
and  the  same  single  existence. 

That  thinking  is  and  must  be  a mode  of  motion  is  not 
merely  a postulate  of  logic,  but  a proposition  which  has  of 
late  been  demonstrated  experimentally.  It  has  been  shown 
by  minute  observations  of  the  rapidity  of  the  transmission 
of  nervous  impulses  that  this  rapidity,  compared  with  other 
modes  of  motion,  is  very  small,  and  that  the  same  thing  is 
true  of  the  psychical  processes  or  thought-motions  going  on 
in  the  brain,  which  only  become  possible  by  the  help  of  the 
communicating  nerve-fibres  which  join  the  ganglionic  cells 
of  the  gray  layer  together.  Very  ingenious  experiments 
have  proved  that  the  swiftest  thought  that  we  are  able  to 
evolve  occupies  at  least  the  eighth  or  tenth  pari  of  a second, 
and  that  this  spell  of  time  increases  in  proportion  as  absence 
of  mind,  inattention,  weariness,  or  indolent  or  disordered 
mental  action,  affect  the  rapidity  of  reception  or  of  reaction. 
Thence  follows  this  essential  conclusion,  that,  as  Prof. 
A.  Herzen  says  in  an  excellent  article  ( Kosmos , 1879-80, 
pp.  207  et  seq.),  the  psychical  act  or  thought  act  takes  place 
in  an  extended  resistant  and  composite  substratum,  where- 


THOUGHT. 


243 


fore  such  an  act  is  nothing  more  than  a mode  of  motion, 
which  on  its  part  again  must,  like  every  metabolic  change 
in  the  body,  be  attended  with  the  production  of  a definite 
amount  of  heat.  In  point  of  fact,  physiological  experi- 
ment has  proved  that  the  temperature  of  the  nerve  rises 
when  it  enters  into  activity.  In  the  same  way  Prof.  Schiff 
has  proved,  by  very  ingenious  experiments,  that  the  arrival 
of  a sensational  impression  in  the  brain  causes  an  immediate 
rise  of  temperature.  All  this  goes  to  show  that  psychical 
activity  is  nothing  more  than  a motion  going  on  between 
the  cells  of  the  gray  matter,  caused  by  an  external  im- 
pression. For  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a thought  whose 
subject  does  not  bear  on  the  senses.  All  intellectual  activity 
proceeds  in  final  resort  from  sensation  and  from  the  reaction 
or  response  of  him  who  experiences  the  sensation  towards 
the  outer  world.  There  are  no  ideas  unconnected  with 
the  impressions  that  are  received  or  have  been  received  by 
the  senses  ; and  in  the  joining  together  of  these  ideas  by 
means  of  the  inter-communicating  nerve-fibres  lies  the 
essence  of  intellectual  activity. 

The  words  mind , spirit , thought,  sensibility , volition,  life, 
designate  no  entities  and  no  things  real,  but  only  proper- 
ties, capacities,  actions  of  the  living  substance,  or  results 
of  entities,  which  are  based  upon  the  material  form  of  exist- 
ence. The  great  blunder  of  the  philosophic  schools  was 
that  they  took  the  words  or  signs  which  in  reality  have  but 
a conventional  meaning  as  entities,  and  as  things  real  ; by 
so  doing  they  created  an  incurable  confusion  in  a state  of 
things  that  is  very  simple  in  itself.  This  confusion  is  main- 
tained and  increased  by  the  utterly  false  conception  of  mat- 
ter, dealt  with  in  a former  chapter,  which  they  have  put 
forward,  and  which  prevents  them  from  doing  justice  to  it. 
What  earthly  ground  have  spiritualists  to  stand  on  in  con- 
tending as  they  do,  that  matter  cannot  think?  None,  save 
that  false  one,  which  has  to  some  extent  become  our  second 
nature,  owing  to  our  spiritualistic  training.  Is  it  not,  on 
the  contrary,  a patent  fact  obvious  to  all  but  the  wilfully 


244 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


blind,  that  matter  does  think?  De  la  Mettrie  made  merry 
over  this  narrowness  of  the  spiritualists,  in  saying  : “When 
people  ask  whether  matter  can  think,  it  is  as  though  they 
asked  whether  matter  can  strike  the  hours  ! ’ ’ Matter,  in- 
deed, as  such , thinks  as  little  as  it  strikes  the  hours  ; but  it 
does  both,  when  brought  into  such  conditions  that  thinking 
or  hour-striking  results  as  a natural  action  or  performance. 

Voltaire  compares  the  mind  with  the  song  of  the  nightin- 
gale, which  rings  as  long  as  the  organic  machine  that  emits 
it  lives  and  works,  but  which  ceases  with  the  extinction  of 
that  activity.  The  same  simile  holds  good  of  any  machine 
made  by  man.  When  a steam-engine  performs  work,  or  a 
clock  shows  the  hours,  these  are  the  results  of  their  activity, 
just  as  thought  is  the  result  of  the  complex  machinery  of  that 
material  tissue  which  we  call  brain.  But  the  be-all  and  end- 
all  of  the  steam-engine  does  not  consist  in  producing  steam, 
nor  is  it  the  chief  object  of  the  watch  to  evolve  heat  by  its 
motion  ; in  the  same  way  the  essential  part  of  the  brain- 
mechanism  does  not  consist  in  its  producing  heat  or  that 
minute  quantity  of  fluid  which  is  present  in  the  ventricles 
of  the  brain.  It  does  not  produce  matter,  like  the  liver  or 
the  kidneys,  but  is  an  activity,  which  appears  as  the  highest 
blossom  and  fruit  of  all  terrestrial  organization. 

It  having  once  been  shown  that  thought  is  indissolubly 
conjoined  with  definite  material  motions,  it  will  be  sufficient 
to  throw  a mere  glance  on  the  great  and  invariable  law  of  the 
maintenance  or  conservation  of  energy,  in  order  to  convince 
every  person  endowed  with  a clear  mind,  that  thought  or 
psychical  activity  is  everywhere  but  a form  or  a particular 
manifestation  of  that  great,  universal  and  simple  natural  force 
which  sustains  the  eternal  cycle  of  energies,  revealing  itself 
now  as  mechanical,  now  as  electrical,  now  as  mental  force. 
It  is  of  no  great  consequence  whether  the  metabolism  main- 
tained by  nutrition,  and  constantly  going  on  in  our  bodies, 
lends  to  the  laborer  or  pedestrian  their  muscular  force,  or 
to  the  scientist,  thinker,  or  poet,  the  force  which  creates 
thoughts  in  the  brain  : the  form  or  the  effect  only  differs  in 


THOUGHT. 


245 


accordance  with  the  variations  in  the  organs  concerned. 
Recent  investigations  have  shown  that  a force,  which  had 
hitherto  been  noticed  and  observed  clearly  in  the  inorganic 
world  alone,  plays  so  important  a part  in  the  physiological 
processes  of  the  nervous  system,  that  nervous  energy  and 
electricity  may  be  looked  upon  as  the  same  thing.  Each 
nerve  must  be  regarded  as  the  source  of  an  electric  current, 
generated  therein  by  the  motion  of  countless  electro-motive 
molecules  that  make  up  the  nerve.  The  nerves,  therefore, 
are  not  merely,  as  was  formerly  thought,  conductors , but 
actual  generators  of  electricity  ; they  generate  it  by  meta- 
bolic changes  occurring  in  their  interior,  that  is  in  the 
nerve-marrow  and  axis-cylinder.  Very  subtle  experiments 
have  proved  that  the  electricity  generated  in  the  nerve 
subsides  or  vanishes  completely  when  the  nerve  is  excited, 
or  when  it  performs  a physiological  function,  which  is  the 
same  thing  ; while  on  the  other  hand  it  accumulates  electro- 
motive force  during  rest  and  inactivity.  This  proves  con- 
clusively that  nerve-force,  nerve-activity,  and  nerve  action, 
are  synonymous  with  transmuted  electricity,  and  that  the 
nerve  is  only  one  of  those  countless  appliances  to  be  found 
in  Nature,  which  are  destined  to  change  static  or  latent 
into  active  or  dynamic  force.  This  change  is  effected,  in 
the  first  instance,  by  electricity  being  set  free,  as  a result 
of  the  chemical  processes  that  take  place  in  its  interior,  and 
next  by  this  free  electricity  being  changed  into  nerve- 
activity.  But  since  this  activity  consists  chiefly  in  the 
phenomena  of  sensation  and  volition,  and  since — as  indeed 
no  proficient  psychologist  doubts  at  the  present  day  — all 
physical  activity  is  developed  and  built  up  successively  by 
repeated  and  gradually  intensified  sensations  or  impressions 
from  without  transmitted  by  the  nerves,  we  actually  stand 
on  the  very  threshold  of  a knowledge  which  will  no  longer 
allow  the  evolution  of  all  psychical  action  from  Nature’s 
general  store  of  power  and  its  subordination  under  the  great 
law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  to  appear  in  the  least 
doubtful.  Neither  can  it  be  doubted  that  this  is  possible  and 


246 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


conceivable  only  by  the  mediation  of  the  material  substrata 
or  organs  specially  fitted  therefor,  as  the  brain  more  particu- 
larly is  for  thinking,  that  is  to  say,  for  the  reciprocal  concat- 
enation of  the  conceptions  arising  from  external  impressions 
by  means  of  the  fibres  or  conductive  organs  connecting  the 
cells  of  the  gray  layer  of  the  brain  with  one  another. 

In  the  foregoing  we  have  expressed  the  perfectly  accurate 
fundamental  thought  which  lies  at  the  root  of  Vogt’s  com- 
parison, however  inappropriately  such  a comparison  may 
have  been  chosen.  As  there  is  no  bile  without  liver  and 
no  urine  without  kidneys,  so  there  is  no  thought  without 
brain.  Mental  activity  is  a function  of  brain-substance. 
This  truth  is  simple,  clear,  and  borne  out  by  countless  facts. 
The  so-called  acephali  or  headless  beings  are  children  who 
are  born  into  the  world  with  a mere  rudimentary  brain- 
structure,  i.  e.,  with  one  but  partially  developed.  These 
unhappy  creatures,  which  offer  the  most  unfavorable  argu- 
ment possible  for  the  alleged  theory  of  design  in  Nature, 
are  incapable  of  any  human  development  and  die  early  ; 
for  they  lack  the  essential  organ  of  human  existence  and 
thought.  The  microcephali , or  small-headed  children,  are 
closely  related  to  these.  They  have  imperfectly  developed 
brains,  and  though  they  can  live  and  grow,  they  are  in  their 
whole  being  more  like  animals  than  men,  and  in  mental  ca- 
pacity stand  far  below  the  grade  of  an  intelligent  animal. 
“Nothing  is  more  certain,”  said  the  spiritualistically-minded 
Lotze,  “than  that  the  physical  condition  of  bodily  elements 
may  formulate  a number  of  activities  on  which  the  existence 
and  form  of  our  mental  condition  of  yiecessily  depend.” 

When  matter  vanishes,  thought  vanishes  also  ! 

Hamlet, in  the  famous  church-yard  scene,  pertinently  asks: 

“Why  may  not  that  be  the  skull  of  a lawyer?  Where  be  his 
quiddities  now,  his  quillets,  his  cases,  his  tenures,  and  his  tricks  ? 
Why  does  he  suffer  this  rude  knave  now  to  knock  him  about  the 
sconce  with  a dirty  shovel,  and  will  not  tell  him  of  his  action  of 

battery? Where  be  your  gibes  now,  poor  Yorick?  your 

gambols  ? your  songs  ? your  flashes  of  merriment  that  were  wont 
to  set  the  table  in  a roar?  Not  one  now ! ” 


Consciousness. 


Capacity  of  consciousness  must  lie  dormant  in  tile  existence  of  the  atoms  ; other- 
wise our  brain,  which  is  a group  of  atoms,  could  not  possess  consciousness. — 
Meynert. 

The  attempt  to  construct  an  immaterial  being  or  an  unchangeable  Ego  out  of  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness  and  self-consciousness  must  be  considered  as 
having  failed  just  as  much  as  every  other  similar  attempt. — A.  Mayer. 
Sensation  and  consciousness  differ  from  one  another  but  quantitatively  and  not 
qualitatively. — H.  Kuhne. 

IF,  as  has  been  shown  in  the  foregoing  chapter,  our 
whole  mental  life  has  been  built  up  gradually  from 
repeated  sensations,  caused  by  impressions  from  with- 
out, the  same  thing  must  be  true  of  consciousness,  and 
especially  of  self-consciousness;  for  this  is  essentially  nothing 
more  than  the  sum  total  of  our  sensations,  or  a cumulation 
and  aggregation  of  pictures  imprinted  on  the  memory. 
Therefore,  the  lower  we  go  down  the  ladder  of  organisms, 
the  less  clear  and  the  more  confused  does  consciousness 
become,  until,  having  finally  arrived  at  the  simplest  proto- 
plasmic animals,  we  see  all  reactions  to  external  stimuli 
merged  in  almost  imperceptible  movements,  and  no  longer 
able  to  separate  these  movements,  caused  by  pleasure  or 
pain,  from  the  elementary  properties  of  organized  matter. 
(O.  Schmidt.)  Only  when  we  get  to  the  higher  animals 
and  to  man  does  consciousness  become  a factor  of  such 
importance  that  a special  study  of  it  as  a separate  intel- 
lectual capacity  becomes  possible.  This,  however,  does  not 
take  place  suddenly,  but  very  slowly  and  gradually  on  the 
strength  of  the  improved  organization  of  the  brain  and 
nervous  system,  and  of  an  increasing  abundance  of  im- 
pressions and  of  the  ideas  that  are  formed  by  them.  In 

(247) 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


248 

this  respect  the  new-born  human  child  stands  scarcely 
higher  than  the  lowest  animal.  It  requires  long  use  and 
experience  before  it  can  localize  its  individual  sensations  and 
learn  to  draw  a line  between  them.  When  it  has  succeeded 
in  doing  this,  it  gradually  develops  self-consciousness  and 
recognizes  its  own  Ego  as  distinct  from  other  Egos  and 
from  the  Non-Ego.  Yet  this  can  only  be  performed  to 
perfection  when  thought  has  reached  a certain  stage  of 
development,  and  when  long  experience  supplies  sufficient 
material  to  it.  But  since  this  material  is  subject  to  continuous 
changes,  the  consciousness  must  also  change  ; it  can  never 
be  the  same  in  two  separate  moments.  And  this  is  actually 
the  case;  only  the  change  proceeds  under  normal  circum- 
stances in  such  a gradual  and  imperceptible  manner  that 
we  only  become  aware  of  it  when  we  survey  large  portions 
of  our  life  at  once,  whereas  in  the  case  of  diseases  of  the 
brain  and  the  nerves  the  change  may  go  on  very  rapidly. 

The  moral  personality  behaves  just  the  same  as  does  the 
physical.  Both  change  unceasingly,  but  only  after  long 
periods  can  we  recognize  the  change  with  clearness.  Do 
we  not,  in  point  of  fact  in  afterlife,  find  it  often  quite  impos- 
sible to  place  ourselves  back  into  the  opinions,  views  and 
mental  tendencies  of  earlier  years,  or  to  believe  that  at  one 
time  our  idiosyncrasy  was  such  or  such?  Of  our  earliest 
childhood  we,  as  a rule,  know  either  nothing  at  all,  or  we 
know  it  but  from  hearsay.  Therefore  to  be  accurate,  we 
should  not  speak  of  being  conscious,  but  only  of  becoming 
conscious,  as  it  were,  in  an  incessantly,  changing,  now 
increasing,  now  decreasing  proportion. 

Besides,  this  one  thing  can  never  be  sufficiently  empha- 
sized in  opposition  to  all  theistical  and  pantheistical  con- 
ceptions, that  consciousness  can  only  originate  in  the 
individual,  for  the  individual  only  can  have  an  opposite  or 
a Non-Ego  from  whom  he  differs  by  his  consciousness, 
whereas  consciousness  can  never  belong  to  the  Infinite, 
which  has  no  opposite  and  can  receive  no  impressions  from 
without. 


CONSCIOUSNESS. 


249 


The  spiritualistic  psychologists  or  spirit-hunters,  who  see 
ghosts  everywhere  where  there  are  none,  and  who  try  to 
obfuscate  the  simplest  and  most  lucid  things  by  wrapping 
them  in  a cloud  of  words,  have  bandied  about  the  word 
consciousness  even  more  than  they  have  that  of  mind, 
seeking,  as  they  do,  to  represent  it  as  a metaphysical, 
immaterial,  single  and  simple,  inextensible,  indivisible,  and 
ever  unchangeable  being,  as  the  last  and  chief  resort  of  all 
mental  activities,  something  like  the  manager  of  a play, 
who,  standing  behind  the  scenes,  superintends  the  play  of 
the  phenomenal  world  of  sensations  caused  by  impressions. 

But  of  consciousness  the  same  remarks  hold  good  as  of 
the  mind ; it  is  not  that  single,  simple,  inextensible  and 
indivisible  being  as  which  the  philosophers  are  wont  to 
represent  it,  but  on  the  contrary  a very  complicated  com- 
posite thing,  dependent  on  a whole  range  of  diverse  brain 
and  nerve  particles  separated  in  space.  Far  from  being 
single  and  simple,  inextensible  or  indivisible,  consciousness 
is  composite,  extensible,  divisible  and  changing,  and  in 
proof  of  this,  countless  experiments  of  practical  mental 
science  can  be  adduced. 

It  is,  as  Bastian  remarks,  one  of  the  worst  errors  to 
suppose  that  consciousness  includes  the  whole  mental  being, 
for  experimentally  it  has  been  found  that  many  mental 
processes  go  on  without  consciousness.  In  fact  many 
phenomena  prove  that  consciousness  may  for  a time 
disappear  or  be  injured,  without  psychical  life  being 
extinguished  at  the  same  time.  On  the  other  hand,  con- 
sciousness may  in  many  instances  of  daily  life  be  perfectly 
preserved  and  remain  uninjured,  and  yet  keep  outside  the 
range  of  numerous  stimuli  and  purposive  movements.  For 
instance,  if  we  read  aloud,  as  Huxley  has  pointed  out, 
(. Principles  of  Physiology,  Lecture  II),  a number  of  delicate 
muscular  movements  are  going  on  of  which  the  reader  is 
wholly  unconscious,  such  as  the  movements  of  the  hand, 
the  eyes,  the  lips,  the  tongue,  the  laryngeal  and  respiratory 
muscles,  etc.,  while  the  whole  attention  is  directed  entirely 


250 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


to  the  contents  of  the  book.  Or  when,  in  lively  discourse, 
we  accompany  our  words  with  corresponding  gestures,  all 
this  goes  on  as  a rule  quite  instinctively  and  without  con- 
scious volition  taking  any  part  therein.  In  the  same  way, 
a soldier  marching  while  he  sleeps,  or  an  animal  deprived 
of  the  cerebrum,  makes  a whole  series  of  purposive  move- 
ments without  consciousness  having  any  share  in  them. 
It  is  well  known  that  in  the  sensational  sphere  a number  of 
stimuli,  which  under  other  circumstances  would  be  felt, 
remain  unperceived,  when  consciousness  or  attention  are 
vigorously  attracted  elsewhere. 

That  consciousness  is  divisible  may  be  shown  by  the 
fact  that  lowly  animals  (worms  and  polyps)  may  be  cut 
into  as  many  pieces  as  the  operator  pleases,  and  yet  each 
piece  will  continue  to  live  as  a separate  individual  with  a 
separate  consciousness.  Lyonnet  cut  up  a nais  (a  fresh- 
water worm)  into  nearly  forty  pieces,  and  found  that  each 
piece  developed  into  a complete  animal.  (See  Darwin  : 
Variation , etc.,  vol.  II,  p.  351.)  This  is  true  of  a large 
number  of  lowly  animals,  which  propagate  themselves  by 
simple  fission,  and  so  suddenly  produce  by  mechanical 
division  a double  or  treble  consciousness  from  their  previous 
single  one.  This  principle  of  division  extends  in  essence 
as  far  as  the  highest  classes  of  animals  and  even  to  man 
himself,  for  in  each  generation  of  a new  being  a part  or 
piece  of  the  parental  body  is  thrown  off,  which  piece,  as  is 
well  known,  conveys  to  the  begotten  creature  not  only  the 
physical,  but  also  the  psychical  peculiarities  of  the  begetter. 

But  we  may  go  further  and  say  that  even  in  man  the 
complete,  fully-developed  consciousness  is  not  simple  and 
unchangeable  or  indivisible,  as  spiritualists  will  have  it. 
This  is  evidenced  by  cases  — so  frequently  observed  of  late 
— of  what  is  called  double  or  alternating  or  changing  con- 
sciousness, in  other  words  the  doubling  of  the  Ego,  in 
which,  on  different  days  and  at  different  times,  the  same 
man  has  a different  consciousness  and  does  not  know  one 
day  what  happened  to  him  on  another. 


CONSCIOUSNESS. 


251 


A number  of  highly  instructive  facts  of  this  description 
have  been  observed  and  recorded  by  Schroder,  van  der 
Kolk,  Jaffe,  Krishaber,  Azam,  Galizier,  Laveran,  Camiiset, 
Dr.  J.  Theyskens,  and  others.  According  to  Dr.  Krishaber 
the  remarkable  condition  of  those  affected  with  this  malady 
may  be  best  compared  to  that  of  a caterpillar  which,  while 
retaining  its  caterpillar  reminiscences,  is  suddenly  turned 
into  a butterfly  with  all  its  senses  and  sensations.  A deep 
gulf  exists  between  the  old  and  the  new  condition,  i.  e.,  be- 
tween the  caterpillar  and  butterfly  state  ; the  new  sensative 
faculties  cannot  knit  themselves  on  to  the  old,  and  the 
patient  cannot  re-discover  them  in  himself;  first  he  comes 
to  the  notion,  ‘ ‘ I am  not  I ” ; next  to  the  conclusion,  ‘ ‘ I am 
some  one  else,”  or  he  seems  to  himself  like  a newborn  child. 
Others  experience  a sensation  as  though  they  existed  no 
longer  ; they  feel  their  own  bodies  without  being  able  to 
convince  themselves  of  their  reality  ; others  again  see  them- 
selves transmogrified  into  two  persons;  sometimes  every  con- 
nective memory  between  the  two  conditions  so  completely 
breaks  down,  that  the  patient  not  only  thinks  that  he  is,  but 
actually  is  another  person.  If  the  second  condition  becomes 
the  normal  or  permanent  one,  as  was  observed  in  the  case 
of  Felida  X.  (1859 — -75),  then  a part  of  the  earlier  life  is 
perfectly  obliterated  for  the  sufferer.  In  the  case  reported 
by  Dr.  Camuset,  (Ann ales  m/dico-psychologiques,  Jan. 
1882),  one  year  had  completely  vanished  from  the  memory 
of  a youth  of  seventeen. 

These  remarkable  phenomena,  the  study  of  which  does 
more  to  elucidate  the  nature  of  the  Ego  and  of  consciousness 
than  whole  volumes  of  metaphysical  dissertations,  owe  their 
origin,  according  to  some  to  a periodical  cramp  of  the  blood- 
vessels that  nourish  a certain  part  of  the  mesencephalon; 
according  to  others  they  are  due  to  an  irregularity  in  the 
working  in  the  two  hemispheres.  They  show  that  the  con- 
sciousness of  Ego  is  but  a changing  form  of  the  totality  of  our 
sensation,  and  that  it  only  remains  the  same  as  long  as  these 
pursue  an  accustomed  and  uniform  course.  As  soon  as  any 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


252 

interruption  occurs,  the  consciousness  of  Ego  changes  in  its 
turn.  The  most  rapid  changes  are  represented  by  cases  of 
double  consciousness  ; the  most  regular  and  gradual  by  the 
above-mentioned  variations  and  transitions  that  occur  in 
the  normal  progress  of  life.  The  consciousness  of  the 
graybeard  is  other  than  that  of  the  mature  man ; that  of 
the  mature  man  differs  from  that  of  the  youth  ; that  of  the 
youth  again  is  not  the  same  as  that  of  the  child.  The  con- 
sciousness of  the  man  who  has  grown  wealthy,  is  other  than 
that  of  the  poor  man  ; that  of  the  savant  other  than  that  of 
the  student.  The  consciousness  of  the  invalid  differs  from 
that  of  the  healthy  man,  and  so  on.  Therefore,  all  those 
cases  of  double  consciousness  can  only  be  looked  upon  as 
the  superlative  degree  of  a natural  physiological  condition 
and  process,  and  regarded  from  this  point  of  view,  they 
scarcely  deserve  the  name  of  “disease.”  Besides,  those 
who  suffer  from  double  consciousness  are  perfectly  rational 
and  in  no  sense  mentally  diseased.  The  Ego  only  remains 
the  same  so  long  as  the  sensations  are  the  same  ; it  changes 
with  their  change,  and  re-appears  so  soon  as  these  return 
to  their  normal  condition. 

The  theory  of  the  unity  and  immateriality  of  conscious- 
ness, as  set  forth  by  spiritualists,  likewise  rests  but  on 
self-deception  and  ignorance  of  facts.  The  mere  circum- 
stance that  consciousness  is  united  to  the  activity  of  the 
ganglia  or  nerve-cells  spread  over  so  large  a surface  as  the 
gray  envelope  of  the  cerebrum,  or  rather  that  it  is  the 
expression  of  this  activity,  militates  against  the  very  thought 
of  such  a spiritualistic  unity  ; and  the  theory  is  still  further 
disproved  by  the  well-known  fact  that  writh  the  loss  of 
certain  parts  of  the  brain  by  wounds  whole  periods  of  life 
may  vanish  from  the  memory  of  the  wounded  person. 

The  unity  of  consciousness  can  only  exist  in  this  sense 
that  the  person  to  whom  it  belongs  is  one,  and  has  his  or- 
ganic centre  in  the  correlation  of  the  whole  nervous  system, 
just  as  the  body  is  composed  of  many  individual  parts,  and 
yet  presents  a unity,  without  being,  on  that  account,  one 


CONSCIOUSNESS. 


253 


and  indivisible,  like  the  first  French  Republic.  Physiology 
has  not  yet  succeeded,  and  never  will  succeed,  in  finding  a 
single  spot  in  the  interior  of  the  brain  for  consciousness  ; 
the  famous  sensorium  commune , the  general  centre  of  the 
brain,  wherein,  according  to  the  ancient  views,  all  sensa- 
tions met,  thence  to  pass  to  the  motorium  commune  or 
general  centre  of  all  movements,  has  long  since  been  con- 
signed to  the  limbo  of  physiological  fables. 

But  even  the  discovery  of  such  a point  would  not  satisfy 
the  spiritualistic  demands,  for  consciousness  as  an  immate- 
rial thing  cannot  be  conjoined  to  an  extensible,  but  only  to 
an  inextensible,  that  is  to  say,  a non-existent  spot.  But 
seeing  that  a blow  on  the  head,  or  a few  drops  of  opium, 
or  a few  glasses  of  wine  taken  in  excess,  or  a passing  cramp 
of  the  blood-vessels,  or  a slight  loss  of  blood,  or  the  action 
of  abnormally  changed  blood  on  the  ganglia,  is  sufficient 
to  make  consciousness  disappear  or  throw  it  into  confusion, 
the  idea  of  its  immateriality  cannot  seriously  be  entertained. 
Consciousness  like  thought,  is  a performance  or  action  or 
phenomenal  activity  of  certain  parts  or  tissues  of  the  brain, 
and  in  that  capacity  it  is  subject  to  all  the  changes  which 
take  place  in  the  condition,  nutrition  and  growth  of  the  brain. 
But  the  question  as  to  whether,  as  Meynert  thinks,  capacity 
for  consciousness  is  latent  in  the  essence  of  the  atom  itself, 
or  whether  it  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  result  of  a certain 
mode  of  atomic  union  taking  place  under  certain  conditions 
and  circumstances,  may  for  the  present  remain  unanswered. 
How  and  in  what  way  the  atoms,  the  nerve-cells,  or,  to 
speak  generally,  matter  began  to  produce  and  bring  forth 
sensation  and  consciousness,  is  quite  unimportant  for  the 
purpose  of  our  investigation  ; it  is  sufficient  to  know  that 
such  is  the  case. 

Upon  all  these  grounds,  the  endeavors  lately  made  by  a 
renowned  modern  physiologist,  amid  the  applause  of  spirit- 
ualistic triflers,  in  order  to  prove  that  consciousness  cannot, 
and  never  will  be  explained  by  material  conditions,*  seem 

*E.  Dubois-Reymond,  Essay  on  the  Limits  of  the  Knowledge  of  Nature. 


254 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


wholly  vain  and  useless,  proceeding,  as  they  do,  from  an 
erroneous  basis.  How  can  it  be  thought  possible  to  explain 
consciousness  from  material  conditions,  while  matter  itself  is 
not  understood,  and  while  we  are  unable  to  give  an  ade- 
quate account  entering  into  the  very  heart  of  Nature,  of  a 
single  phenomena  or  natural  force  ? If  the  progress  of  our 
knowledge  and  of  our  convictions  were  made  to  depend  on 
answering  such  questions,  we  should  probably  have  to  re- 
main forever  were  we  are  now.  On  the  other  hand  we 
know  with  absolute  certainty  that  all  existence  including 
sensation  and  consciousness,  is  one  and  self-dependent, 
ruled  without  exception  by  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  and 
that  no  breaking  through  these  boundaries  set  up  by  the 
necessity  of  Nature  is  possible  at  any  point  or  at  any  time. 
Herr  Dubois-Reymond  will  be  the  less  prepared  to  deny 
this,  as  he  himself  has,  on  other  occasions,  stood  up  so 
vigorously  for  “the  law  of  mechanical  causality.”  But 
this  is  perfectly  sufficient  to  vindicate  the  monistic  stand- 
point, not  only  in  questions  relating  to  the  brain  and  the 
mind,  but  also  in  questions  of  consciousness  as  the  only 
accurate  method  of  proceeding,  since  in  macrocosmic  mat- 
ters it  has  long  been  regarded  as  the  only  tenable  one. 

It  is  true  that  with  this  view  disappear  all  those  unscien- 
tific and  chimerical  hopes  with  which  philosophical  and 
religious  spiritualism  has  so  long  fascinated  the  mind  of 
man  after  the  fashion  of  Puck,  and  of  which  we  shall  speak 
more  in  detail  in  a subsequent  chapter.  It  neither  can  nor 
should  be  denied  that  the  transitory  nature  of  the  conscious- 
ness, to  which  matter  has  gradually  attained  in  the  mind  of 
man,  stands  in  an  unsatisfactory  opposition  to  the  moral 
feeling  of  the  individual,  and  that  in  all  ages  this  opposition 
has  rightly  called  forth  countless  bitter  complaints  from 
poets  and  thinkers.  But  To  turn  that  feeling,  as  unfortu- 
nately many  do,  into  a starting-point  for  philosophical 
conviction,  amounts,  as  Wieszner  says,  to  philosophizing 
with  wishes  instead  of  with  truths. 


Seat  of  the  Soul. 


Physiology  teaches  us  with  absolute  certainty  that  the  brain  is  the  seat  and  vehicle 
of  our  reflections  and  sensations. — Beneke. 

Who  therefore,  is  to  remain  unmoved  at  this  idea  of  the  seat  of  the  mind  ? We 
stand  astonished  before  the  fane  within  which  the  intellectual  forces  act  and 
work,  before  the  enigmatical  forms,  which  throughout  all  the  life  and  work 
and  doing  and  performing  of  the  human  race  from  the  beginning  even  until 
our  own  time,  have  carried  on  their  mysterious  play. — Hoschke. 

Narrow  is  the  world,  and  wide  is  the  brain. — Schiller. 

THE  brain  is  not  only  the  organ  of  thought  and  of  all 
the  higher  intellectual  abilities,  which  have  their 
exclusive  seat  in  its  gray  layer,  but  it  is  also  the  only 
seat  of  the  soul , taking  that  word  as  signifying  the  activity 
of  the  whole  brain  in  all  its  parts,  and  including  the  sensorial 
and  motive  functions  or  the  sensational  and  volitional  acts, 
induced  of  the  central  gray  ganglia,  as  well  as  its  control 
over  the  whole  nervous  system.  The  word  “soul”  represents 
the  inclusive  and  general,  the  word  “spirit”  the  narrower  and 
particular  conception;  and  thus  we  speak  of  the  “soul”  or 
anima  of  animals  in  a general,  but  of  the  “spirit”  or  animus 
in  a very  limited  sense.  Therefore,  the  principle  of  the 
soul  may  be  traced  through  the  whole  organic  world  down 
to  the  lower  and  lowest  animals,  wherein  it  is  only  joined 
to  single  nerve-spots  or  to  the  nerveless  body-substance, 
and  may  be  followed  even  down  to  the  plants,  in  which  it 
is  represented  at  its  lowest  stage  as  an  excitability  without 
consciousness  and  without  sensation.  The  animus , on  the 
other  hand,  is  but  the  product  of  the  activity  of  a single 
centrally  placed  nervous  structure,  and  grows  in  strength 
in  the  same  ratio  as  the  principle  of  the  division  of  labor 
and  of  the  differentiation  of  the  individual  parts  or  divisions 
of  the  nervous  system  gradually  increases. 

(255) 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


256 

So  long  as  the  soul  was  regarded  as  a self  contained,  im- 
material being  or  unit,  which  was  but  temporarily  and 
transitorily  joined  to  the  body,  it  is  readily  understood  that 
a special  ‘ ‘ seat  ’ ’ or  dwelling-place  within  the  latter  was 
eagerly  sought  for. 

Yet  it  is  an  averred  fact  that  Hippocrates,  the  Nestor  of 
physicians  (500  b.  c.),  the  philosopher  Plato,  and  the  Greek 
physician  Galen  (born  A.  D.  131),  whose  system  of  medi- 
cine ruled  supreme  for  nearly  fourteen  centuries,  regarded 
the  brain  as  the  seat  of  the  soul,  at  least  of  what  they  dis- 
tinguished as  the  rational  or  reasoning  soul.  But  Plato’s 
pupil  Aristotle  swerved  from  this  correct  view,  and  sought 
for  the  seat  of  the  soul  in  the  heart,  which  organ,  as  every- 
body knows,  is  set  down  in  the  Old  Testament  as  the  seat 
of  all  intellectual  activities,  and  which,  even  now,  is  looked 
upon  in  that  light  by  the  Chinese.  The  philosophers 
Diogenes  and  Chrysippos  shared  this  opinion,  while  other 
Greek  philosophers  considered  the  peculiar  seat  of  the  soul 
to  be,  some  in  the  blood,  others  in  the  breast.  So  far  as 
that  goes,  it  may  be  said  that  many  arbitrary  notions  were 
current  among  the  ancients  on  this  matter,  for  most  of 
their  philosophers  distinguished  several  specific  kinds  of 
souls,  and  were  therefore  obliged  to  find  for  them  different 
seats  in  different  parts  of  the  body. 

During  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  more 
accurate  views  became  prevalent,  in  consequence  of  the 
progress  of  anatomy  and  physiology.  Thus,  Thomas  Willis 
(1664),  recognizing  at  that  early  date  the  importance  of 
the  gray  matter  and  of  the  convolutions,  looked  upon 
the  whole  brain,  and  more  particularly  upon  the  corpora 
striata , as  the  organ  of  the  intellect.  But  the  firmly  estab- 
lished opinions  of  philosophers  and  theologians  on  the 
nature  of  the  soul  prevented  this  more  correct  view  from 
making  its  way,  and  great,  though  nugatory,  efforts  were 
made  to  discover  the  peculiar  seat  of  the  soul,  now  in  this, 
now  in  that  individual  part  of  the  brain,  losing  sight  all  the 
while  of  the  fact  that  it  could  only  be  based  on  the  activity 


SEAT  OF  THE  SOUL. 


257 


of  the  whole  organ.  Most  acceptance  fell  to  the  view  of  the 
French  philosopher  Descartes  or  Cartesius,  who  pointed  to 
the  pineal  gland  as  the  peculiar  seat  of  the  soul,  an  organ 
about  as  large  as  a pea,  situated  in  the  interior  of  the  brain 
and  filled  with  the  so-called  brain-sand.  This  body  seemed 
specially  designed  as  the  bearer  of  a single  and  indivisible 
soul-being,  partly  because  it  is  the  only  unpaired  organ  of 
the  brain,  partly  because  of  its  connection  with  the  ven- 
tricles, which  are  the  accepted  gathering-places  of  the 
nerve-spirits. 

Even  down  to  the  times  of  the  great  philosopher  Kant 
(1724-1804)  — the  man  who  is  at  this  day  extolled  by  the 
whole  number  of  hired  old-world  philosophers  as  the  last 
deliverer  from  the  distress  wrought  for  them  by  the  materi- 
alistic and  monistic  views  of  the  age,  and  at  whose  sight, 
as  at  that  of  Medusa’s  head,  all  opponents  are  to  be  turned 
into  stone  — people  were  so  puzzled  or  so  ignorant  about 
the  matter  that  Kant,  supported  by  the  famous  Frankfort 
anatomist,  Sommering,  sought  the  peculiar  seat  of  the  soul 
in  the  small  quantity  of  water  or  watery  serum  which  is 
found  in  the  interior  of  the  above-named  ventricles. 

Among  moderns,  Ennemoser  made  by  speculative  means 
the  ingenious  discovery  that  the  soul  resides  m the  whole 
body , while  the  philosopher  Fischer  of  Basle  feels  no  doubt 
that  it  is  immanent  in  the  whole  nervous  system. 

Philosophers  are  wonderful  people.  The  less  they  un- 
derstand of  a thing,  the  more  words  they  make  over  it. 
They  seek  to  explain  the  mystery  of  the  world  ‘ ‘ as  though 
they  were  God’s  spies  ” (King  Lear.)  They  have  as  many 
opinions  as  they  have  heads,  and  as  Bacon  very  forcibly 
says,  they  become  through  their  speculations  “like  owls 
that  only  see  their  dreams  in  the  darkness,  but  become 
blind  in  the  light  of  experience,  and  are  least  able  to  per- 
ceive that  which  is  clearest.’’  As  Spiller  remarks,  they 
possess  the  most  extraordinary  talent  for  bringing  the 
simplest  things  into  the  most  boundless  confusion,  and  they 
water  and  plaster  over  the  simplest  ideas  and  opinions 


258 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


with  such  a mass  of  high-sounding,  apparently  learned,  but 
in  reality  empty  and  unintelligible  words  and  phrases,  that 
a rational  man  loses  his  senses  over  it.  But  the  moment 
we  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  we,  as  a rule,  are  very 
soon  convinced  that  the  whole  tirade  is,  as  Helvetius  says, 
“a  deluge  of  words,  poured  out  over  a desert  of  ideas,” 
and  that  the  ‘ 1 hollow  verbiage  about  being  and  not-being  ” 
(Suhle)  and  similar  philosophical  technicalities  can  have  no 
other  object  but  that  of  hiding  the  utter  scantiness  of  real 
ideas  and  thoughts  from  the  uncritical  reader  or  listener. 
Most  of  the  intellectual  products  of  these  gentlemen  may 
be  aptly  described  by  the  beautiful  Arabic  proverb,  already 
applied  to  them  by  Schopenhauer  : ” I hear  the  mill  clat- 
tering right  enough,  but  I do  not  see  the  meal.” 

In  order  to  save  themselves  from  the  straits  to  which 
they  had  been  put  by  the  enormous  progress  of  realistic 
science,  resulting  in  materialistic  and  monistic  pressure  on 
them,  they  have,  as  we  remarked  just  now,  fallen  back  on 
the  old  philosophical  school-master  Kant  and  his  well- 
known  theory  of  perception,  and  in  doing  so  have  sacrificed 
whatever  has  been  achieved  in  philosophicis  for  the  last 
hundred  years.  The  future  will  show  whether  they  will 
derive  any  benefit  from  falling  back  upon  a thinker  who 
was  utterly  unacquainted  with  the  whole  vast  material 
of  present  science  and  knowledge,  more  especially  the  ap- 
plication of  the  fruitful  thought  of  the  evolutional  theory  to 
the  origin  of  the  human  mind.  At  all  events  they  have, 
in  so  doing,  borne  witness  to  their  own  intellectual  poverty. 
Yet  they  do  not  hesitate  to  abuse  as  “ incapable  of  philo- 
sophic thought  ” those  who  are  not  imposed  upon  by  their 
gibberish,  but  who  see  the  poverty-stricken  nakedness  be- 
neath the  threadbare  covering  ; an  argumentatio  ad  hom- 
inem  which  might  much  more  pertinently  be  rolled  back 
on  themselves  by  the  empiricists.  For  heedless  of  the 
progress  of  empiric  or  natural  science,  they  go  on  tilling 
their  old  philosophic  soil  and  behaving  as  though  there 
were  no  science  in  existence  whenever  they  are  threatened 


SEAT  OF  THE  SOUL.  259 

by  it  with  a destructive  interference  in  their  metaphysical 
speculations. 

The  philosopher  Fischer  of  Basle  says  : “ That  the  soul 
is  immanent  in  the  whole  nervous  system  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  in  all  parts  of  it  it  sensates,  perceives  and  acts.  I 
do  not  feel  pain  in  a central  point  of  the  brain,  but  in  the 
affected  spot  itself.” 

And  yet  what  Fischer  contends  against  is  undoubtedly 
true.  The  nerves  themselves  do  not  feel,  but  they  produce 
sensation  only  by  conducting  the  impressions  they  receive 
to  the  brain.  We  do  not  feel  the  pain  in  the  spot  in  which 
we  are  struck  or  injured,  but  in  the  brain.  If  a sensory 
nerve  be  divided  anywhere  in  its  course  between  periphery 
and  brain,  the  sensibility  of  those  parts  of  the  body  to 
which  that  nerve  was  distributed  ceases  at  the  same 
moment.  This  can  have  no  other  reason  but  that  the 
conduction  of  each  impression  to  the  brain  is  no  longer 
possible  by  the  mediation  of  that  nerve.  We  do  not  see 
with  the  eye  nor  with  the  optic  nerve,  but  with  the  brain. 
Divide  the  optic  nerves,  thereby  destroying  their  conductive 
power,  and  seeing  is  at  an  end.  The  same  thing  happens 
if  the  tubercula  quadrigemina , which  are  a part  of  the  brain, 
are  cut  out  or  destroyed  in  a living  animal,  although  his 
eyes  may  be  perfectly  well  preserved. 

Nothing  but  custom  and  outward  appearance  have  led 
us  to  the  false  belief  that  we  feel  in  those  parts  of  our  bodies 
which  are  incited  from  without.  Physiological  science 
terms  this  remarkable  relation  the  “ law  of  eccentric  phe- 
nomena.” According  to  this  law  we  erroneously  trace  the 
sensation  that  has  been  brought  to  the  brain  to  the  place 
in  which  we  saw  the  stimulus  applied.  It  is  therefore  very 
immaterial  in  what  part  of  its  course  a nerve  is  stimulated  ; 
we  always  feel  the  impression  in  the  peripheral  extremity 
of  the  nerve  only.  If  we  strike  the  elbow  nerve,  we  feel 
the  pain  in  the  fingers,  not  in  the  elbow.  If  an  exostosis 
presses  on  the  facial  nerve  at  its  exit  from  the  cranium,  the 
patient  suffers  from  intolerable  pain  in  the  face,  although 


26o 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


the  peripheral  nerves  of  the  face  are  perfectly  sound.  If  a 
piece  of  skin  be  cut  off  the  forehead  and  transplanted  to 
the  nose,  the  person  on  whom  the  operation  has  been  per- 
formed fancies,  if  his  new  nose  is  touched,  that  he  has  been 
touched  on  the  forehead.  If  the  optic  nerve  is  stimulated 
after  the  eye  has  been  removed,  the  patient  has  the  sensa- 
tion of  light  and  fire,  although  his  eye  can  see  no  longer. 
Persons  who  have  suffered  amputation  have  felt  pains  in 
their  amputated  arm  or  foot,  upon  recurring  changes  in  the 
weather,  during  the  rest  of  their  lives,  although  the  limb 
itself  is  gone  ; without  thinking  of  this  enforced  absence, 
they  often  try  to  touch  it,  because  they  have  experienced  a 
sensation  therein.  If  a man  had  all  his  limbs  cut  off,  he 
would  none  the  less  imagine  that  he  felt  them  all.  But  this 
could  not  and  would  not  be  the  case  with  a person  born 
without  them,  because  he  has  never  had  the  experience 
which  refers  the  eccentric  position  of  the  sensation  in  the 
absent  limbs  to  the  outside. 

The  whole  of  these  facts  go  to  show  that  a definite 
topographical  plan  must  exist  in  the  interior  of  the  brain, 
by  the  help  of  which  the  different  sensations  from  the 
thousand  different  parts  of  the  body  are  distributed  each  in 
a separate  fashion.  Each  spot  in  the  body  which  can 

separately  feel,  must  have  within  the  brain  an  exactly 
corresponding  spot  which  brings  it,  as  it  were,  before  the 
forum  of  consciousness.  It  may  easily  happen  that  a 
vibration  brought  to  such  a central  point  by  the  nerves 
connected  with  it  may  not  be  limited  to  that  point,  but 
may  also  affect  the  neighboring  centres  of  sensation.  In 
this  fashion  the  so-called  sympathetic  sensations  arise.  If 
anyone  is  suffering  from  a hollow  tooth,  it  is  usually  not 
only  the  tooth  which  aches,  but  the  whole  cheek  too. 

What  is  true  of  sensations  is  equally  true  of  the  impulses 
of  the  human  will.  It  is  not  in  the  muscles  but  in  the  brain 
that  the  will  to  make  a move  is  excited,  and  only  in  the 
brain  can  the  volitional  act  be  brought  about.  The  nerves 
are  the  conductors  of  this  impulse,  the  messengers,  as  it 


SEAT  OF  THE  SOUL. 


26l 

were,  who  carry  to  the  muscles  the  commands  of  the  brain. 
If  the  conduction  be  destroyed,  every  volitional  activity 
ceases.  Persons  suffering  from  spinal  disease  are  lame 
on  their  feet,  because  this  disease  interrupts  the  nerve- 
communications  between  the  feet  and  the  brain.  Apoplexy 
is  the  exudation  of  a quantity  of  blood  from  its  vessels  into 
the  interior  of  the  brain.  At  the  same  moment  in  which 
this  exudation  takes  place  to  a sufficient  extent  to  suspend 
the  functions  of  the  brain  in  that  spot,  every  kind  of  sen- 
sation and  movement  completely  ceases  in  the  whole 
corresponding  half  of  the  body.  Who  has  not  observed 
the  pitiable  condition  of  a person  struck  with  apoplexy? 
Just  the  same  condition  is  induced  in  living  animals  by  an 
artificial  scission  of  the  spinal  cord  in  all  the  parts  of  the 
body  below  the  division. 

Like  the  sensory  nerves,  the  beginnings  of  the  motor 
nerves  must  be  distributed  in  some  topographical  manner,  in 
order  that  they  may  severally  be  set  in  motion  by  a volitional 
impulse.  This  relationship  has  been  very  felicitously  com- 
pared to  the  keys  of  a piano,  on  which  the  will  performs 
its  play,  as  it  were.  Like  the  piano  player,  the  will  requires 
long  practice  and  habit  to  acquire  this  skill,  so  as  to  produce 
special  movements  by  striking  special  keys.  Very  often  it 
does  not  succeed,  but  strikes  several  keys  simultaneously, 
thus  producing  sympathetic  movements.  We  want  to  move 
one  finger,  and  instead  of  that  we  move  several,  perhaps 
all  of  them.  Grimaces  or  gestures  in  speaking  depend  on 
this  principle  of  sympathy.  Sympathetic  movements  are 
most  frequently  observed  in  young  children,  who  have  not 
yet  learned  to  isolate  their  volitional  activity.  If  a child 
wants  to  make  the  simplest  movement  it  moves  its  whole 
body. 

The  more  recent  investigations  and  experiments,  made 
by  Broca,  Ferrier,  Munck,  Fritzsch,  Hitzig,  Nodnagel  and 
others,  on  the  localization  of  the  functions  of  the  brain, 
have  shown  beyond  all  doubt  that  a division  of  labor  exists 
in  the  brain  similar  to  that  which  obtains  in  the  body 


262 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


generally,  and  that  each  bodily  division,  nay  each  single 
muscle  has  corresponding  to  it  a certain  spot  in  the  central 
organ.  In  complicated  or  co-ordinated  movements  a 
number  of  central  elements  work  together,  as  e.  g.  in  the 
faculty  of  speech,  for  which  a definite  centre  has  been  dis- 
covered, situated  in  the  fore-part  of  the  brain-envelope  of 
the  left  side  in  the  cortex  of  the  Island  of  Reil  and  the  con- 
volutions surrounding  it.  If  these  parts  lose  their  functional 
activity  by  injury  or  disease,  aphasia  or  speechlessness 
supervenes.  This  much  is  certain,  that  by  these  and  many 
other  experiments  which  we  could  not  very  well  particular- 
ize here,  the  erroneousness  of  the  old  view  has  been  fully 
proved,  according  to  which  all  mental  functions  were  dis- 
tributed over  the  whole  cerebral  gray  layer,  an  error  first 
suggested  by  Flour ens,  a French  savant,  to  which  a great 
many  people  still  adhere.  The  soul  is  not  a sort  of  aggre- 
gate functional  activity  of  the  cerebrum,  but  each  individual 
part  of  the  cerebrum  has  its  own  work  to  do.  Thus  we 
must  assume  that  other  parts  serve  the  memory,  others 
again  represent  the  faculties  of  imagination,  reasoning  and 
judgment,  others  the  impulse  of  voluntary  movement,  and 
others  diverse  descriptions  of  impetus,  feeling,  sensation, 
etc.  It  appears  also  to  be  beyond  doubt  that  our  higher 
and  lower  psychical  lives  are  entirely  divided  anatomically 
within  the  brain  itself,  and  that  while  imagination,  reason, 
judgment,  thought,  conscious  feeling,  desire  and  volition 
only  go  on  in  the  gray  substance  of  the  outer  layer  of  the 
brain,  the  lower  sensorial  and  motor  acts  (including  re- 
flective or  unconscious  nerve-actions)  have  their  centre  in 
the  central  gray  ganglia  or  the  gray  nuclei  of  the  mesen- 
cephalon. This  gray  central  mass  is  connected  on  one 
hand  only  by  the  nervous  system  with  the  whole  body,  and 
on  the  other  hand  is  united  by  connecting  fibres,  in  the 
most  intimate  and  direct  manner,  with  the  gray  cerebral 
layer,  and  reflects  all  the  impulses  reaching  it  from  the 
body  on  to  the  special  seat  of  the  Psyche  and  of  conscious- 
ness. These  impressions  or  messages  coming  from  without 


SEAT  OF  THE  SOUL. 


263 

are  delivered  up  to  the  sensory  cells  and  thence  proceed  to 
the  imagination  cells,  in  which  they  are  translated  into 
ideas  and  thought,  and  by  radiation  on  the  motor  cells 
where  they  are  turned  to  movements  or  volitional  acts. 

Now  let  us  see  what  another  philosopher  has  to  say  on 
the  same  subject. 

Professor  Erdmann  of  Halle  remarks  in  his  psychological 
letters  : ‘ ‘ The  view  that  the  soul  resides  in  the  brain, 

consistently  carried  out,  must  lead  to  the  conclusion  that 
if  the  remainder  of  the  body  should  be  taken  from  the  head 
the  soul  might  continue  to  exist  therein  ! ’ ’ 

This,  in  point  of  fact,  would  doubtless  be  the  case  if  we 
were  able  to  artificially  supply  to  a severed  head  the  nutri- 
tion and  the  maintenance  of  the  metabolism  of  the  brain  by 
infusing  the  blood  necessarily  associated  therewith.*  But 
when  the  severance  takes  place,  the  blood  supply  from  the 
heart  at  once  comes  to  an  end,  and  with  it  all  conscious- 
ness,— every  function  of  the  brain,  every  psychical  activity, 
and  all  life  ceases. 

A few  instances  have  occurred  of  men  having  the  upper 
part  of  the  spinal  marrow  so  compressed  by  the  dislocation 
of  one  of  the  cervical  vertebra,  that  the  communication  be- 
tween the  body  and  the  head  was  completely  cut  off. 
Respiration  and  circulation  and  along  with  these  the  nutri- 
tion of  the  brain  continued,  though  imperfectly.  Such 

’Since  the  above  statement  was  first  written,  it  has  been  thoroughly  borne  out 
by  physiological  experiments.  If  the  head  of  an  animal,  such  as  a dog  or  cat,  is 
cut  off,  the  severed  head  gradually  loses  its  irritability  ; the  eyelids  close,  the  eyes 
become  dull,  the  nostrils  motionless.  But  if  at  this  moment  arterial  defibrinated 
blood  is  injected  into  the  arteries,  the  previously  dead  head  gradually  revives ; 
the  eyelids  open,  the  nostrils  expand,  heat  and  sensation  return,  the  eyes  grow 
bright  again,  and  looking  at  the  bystanders,  turn  in  their  orbits.  Ifthe  animal  is 
called  by  its  name,  the  eyes  turn  to  the  place  from  whence  the  call  proceeds. 
These  signs  of  returning  vitality  last  as  long  as  the  injection  continues,  and 
disappear  and  return  again  as  the  operation  ceases  and  is  resumed.  This  inter- 
esting experiment  has  not  yet  been  made  with  any  decapitated  men.  but  it  may 
be  inferred  that  exactly  the  same  result  would  follow.  Brown-Sequard,  to  whom 
we  are  principally  indebted  for  the  above  experiments,  has  tried  the  same  plan 
with  a newly  amputated  human  arm,  which  had  become  cold  and  senseless.  After 
a few  moments  heat,  irritability,  contractility,  in  fact  all  the  normal  activities 
returned  to  the  dead  limb,  and  Dr  Brown-Sequard  was  able  to  continue  the 
experiment  with  the  same  result  until  fatigue  compelled  him  to  stop. 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


264 

unfortunates  are  dead  while  living.  The  whole  body  is 
entirely  bereft  of  sensation  and  motion  ; it  is  a corpse;  life 
continues  only  in  the  head  and  in  the  immediately  adjacent 
parts  to  which  nerves  are  distributed  from  it.  The 
psychical  existe?ice,  however,  of  such  i?ijured  persons  re- 
mains perfectly  unimp  aired,  at  least  for  a ti?ne;  they  are 
as  it  were,  living  corpses. 

The  thesis  that  the  brain  is  the  seat  of  the  soul  is  so 
firmly  established,  that  for  a long  time  past  the  legal  en- 
actments relating  to  monstrosities  have  been  founded  upon 
it.  A monstrosity  with  one  body  and  two  heads  counts  as 
two  persons,  whilst  such  a creature  with  one  head  and  two 
bodies  counts  only  as  one.  Monstrosities  without  a brain, 
the  so-called  acephali,  have  no  personal  status  in  law. 
Lastly,  Herr  Enneinoser  has  discovered  that  the  soul  re- 
sides in  the  whole  body.  If  Herr  Ennemoser  had  been 
unfortunate  enough  during  his  life  to  lose  a leg  by  amputa- 
tion, he  would  have  found  by  experience,  to  his  no  small 
surprise,  that  his  soul-life  and  his  psychical  existence  had 
thereby  experienced  no  essential  injury  or  alteration. 

Quite  recently  an  attempt,  based  on  experiments  on  ani- 
mals, has  been  made  among  physiological  scientists  to 
weaken  the  hitherto  unimpeached  view  that  the  only  seat 
of  the  soul  is  in  the  brain,  by  attributing  to  the  spinal  cord 
a share  in  sensation  and  voluntary  movement,  and  founding 
thereupon  the  well-known  theory  of  the  so  called  spinal- 
cord-soul.  These  experiments  prove  nothing,  at  least  for 
men  and  all  the  higher  vertebrates,  while  the  reasons  mili- 
tating against  it  are  so  strong  and  so  general  that  science, 
at  any  rate  up  to  the  present  time,  has  not  been  able  in  any 
way  to  accept  such  a limitation. 

There  is  one  additional  thing  that  must  not  be  lost  sight 
of,  and  this  is  that  those  who  look  upon  the  soul,  not  as  a 
resultant  of  the  brain-substance,  but  as  an  ens  per  se  or  a 
self-existent  being,  have  frequently  contended  that  the  soul, 
under  certain  circumstances  and  for  a brief  spell  of  time, 
might  leave  its  seat  in  the  brain  and  take  up  its  residence 


SEAT  OF  THE  SOUL. 


265 

in  some  other  part  of  the  nervous  system.  Such  a part  has 
been  especially  mentioned  as  the  solar  plexus  — a plexus  or 
network  of  the  sympathetic  or  vegetative , sometimes  terrnecl 
ganglionic  or  visceral  nervous  system,  — situated  in  the  up- 
per part  of  the  abdominal  cavity.  This  nervous  system, 
running  down  each  side  of  the  vertebral  column,  with  nu- 
merous ganglia  and  outgoing  nerves,  and  regulating  the 
visceral  movements  connected  with  nutrition,  generation, 
and  secretion,  is  closely  united  by  numerous  fibres,  both 
anatomically  and  physiologically,  with  the  brain  and  spinal 
cord  ; it  nevertheless  maintains  a certain  independence,  re- 
calling the  conditions  of  the  lower  animal  world,  by  means 
of  the  numerous  ganglia  or  nerve-knots  containing  gray 
matter  ; and  by  its  separation  from  the  so-called  animal 
nervous  system,  that  is  to  say  from  that  which  relates  to 
sensation  and  motion,  it  represents  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant advances  brought  about  in  the  perfecting  of  the 
animal  economy  by  division  of  labor.  Without  this  division 
of  labor  the  animal  life  or  psychical  life  embracing  the 
province  of  higher  nervous  activity,  could  not  possibly 
attain  to  that  high  degree  of  perfection  and  capacity  for 
work  which  it  reaches  in  man  and  in  the  higher  mammalia, 
whilst  the  life  of  the  lower  and  lowest  animals  exhausts  itself 
more  or  less  in  the  lower  activities  of  the  sympathetic  sys- 
tem. Therefore,  however  great  may  be  the  part  played  in 
these  lower  activities  and  in  the  whole  process  of  nutrition 
of  the  body  by  this  sympathetic  system,  it  is  yet  in  no  way 
concerned  with  the  duties  of  the  central  organs  of  the 
animal  nervous  system,  or  with  psychical  actions  proper. 
Notwithstanding  this,  people  have  not  hesitated  in  setting 
this  harmless  nerve  down  as  an  accessory  to  the  mystical 
and  speculative  sins  of  our  time,  and  charging  it  with  a 
share  in  the  phenomena  which  are  generally  designated  as 
the  night-life  of  the  soul.  Thus,  for  instance,  this  nerve  is 
stated  to  enable  somnambulists,  or  persons  under  the  in- 
fluence of  animal  magnetism,  to  read  sealed  letters  or  to 
tell  the  hour  on  watches  held,  while  their  eyes  are  closed, 


266 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


on  the  pit  of  then  stomachs,  and  lots  more  of  the  same 
kind. 

We  deem  it  our  duty  to  go  more  thoroughly  into  the 
most  important  of  these  phenomena,  partly  to  vindicate 
our  opinion  that  the  peculiar  seat  of  the  soul  is  in  the 
brain,  partly  and  still  more  so  for  yet  another  reason.  An 
attempt  has  been  made  to  take  advantage  of  some  of  the 
phenomena  alluded  to,  especially  those  of  clairvoyance , 
second  sight,  presentiments,  dreams,  and  lately  even  the 
gross  deceptions  of  spiritualistic  jugglers,  in  order  to  prove 
the  existence  of  supernatural  and  supersensual  powers  and 
manifestations.  Within  them  has  been  sought  the  certain, 
though  obscure  point  in  which  the  spiritual  and  human 
worlds  are  thought  to  meet ; people  have  even  gone  so  far 
as  to  point  to  these  phenomena  as  the  door  through  which 
might  some  day  be  seen  the  dawn  and  the  sure  and  certain 
promise  of  a transcendent  existence,  of  the  realm  of  spirits 
and  of  God,  and  of  future  life.  It  was  hoped  also  that  by 
this  method  we  might  come  on  the  track  of  those  unknown 
and  mysterious  “things  in  themselves,”  which,  according 
to  the  philosophers,  are  hidden  behind  the  phenomenal 
world  which  is  alone  accessible  to  our  methods  of  observa- 
tion, although  the  simplest  reflection  would  have  shown 
that,  if  understood  but  approximately,  they  would  no 
longer  be  “ things  in  themselves.”  Even  so  great  a thinker 
as  Schopenhauer  was  so  far  misled  by  his  philosophical 
doctrines  as  to  believe  with  enthusiastic  faith  in  the  artifices 
of  a peripatetic  magnetizer  called  Regazzoni. 

All  these  things,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  life  outside  of  or 
above  nature,  appear  as  mere  idle  fancies  before  the  clear 
eye  of  science  and  experimental  investigation  ; fancies  to 
which  human  nature  has  at  all  times  resorted,  in  order  to 
appease  its  longing  for  the  miraculous  and  the  supersen- 
sual, handed  down  to  it  from  ancient  reminiscences.  This 
longing  appears  now  in  one,  now  in  another  form,  accord- 
ing to  the  changing  conditions  of  the  age.  The  selfsame 
superstition  which  in  former  centuries  was  represented  by 


SEAT  OF  THE  SOUL. 


267 

belief  in  witches,  wizards  and  evil  spirits,  by  the  notions  of 
diablerie  and  of  people  being  possessed  of  demons,  by 
vampyrism  and  similar  delusions,  appears  in  a modern 
garb  as  table-turning,  spirit-rapping,  and  spiritualism,  as 
psychography,  somnambulism,  and  so  on.  No  doubt, 
educated  people  often  consider  that  belief  in  miraculous 
and  supersensual  things  is  a special  characteristic  of  the 
uneducated  classes ; but  the  contrary  has  been  strikingly 
shown  by  the  “ fluid-mania,”  and  by  the  success  which, 
in  the  best  classes  of  society,  has  attended  the  legerde- 
main and  clap-trap  of  magnetizers,  clairvoyants,  thauma- 
turgists,  spiritists,  hypnotists,  and  other  jugglers. 

Among  the  phenomena  constituting  the  night-life  of  the 
soul  are  usually  reckoned  : The  startling  of  pregnant 
women,  animal  magnetism  with  its  accompanying  phe- 
nomena of  clairvoyance,  the  conditions  of  sleep,  sleep- 
walking, and  somnolency,  presentiments,  second  sight, 
ghostly  apparitions,  and  sympathetic  or  miraculous  cures. 

The  startling  of  pregnant  women  has  no  particular  bear- 
ing on  the  subject  we  are  dealing  with,  being  as  a rule  rele- 
gated at  this  day  by  the  best  authorities  to  the  realm  of 
fables. 

Magnetic  sleep,  sometimes  caused  by  continued  stroking 
of  the  body,  and  sometimes  called  forth  without  such  con- 
tact and  without  any  definite  external  reason — as  in  idioso- 
somnambulism — is  alleged  to  result  in  a state  of  uncon- 
scious spiritual  ecstasy,  which  occasionally,  and  in  the  case 
of  some  specially  endowed  persons,  chiefly  women,  rises 
into  veritable  clairvoyance.  While  in  a state  of  ecstasy, 
the  patients  are  said  to  reveal  greater  intellectual  power 
than  is  habitual  with  them  ; they  speak  fluently  in  foreign 
tongues  and  in  other  and  more  complex  dialects  than  their 
own,  and  on  matters  of  which,  while  awake,  they  are  per- 
fectly ignorant.  The  magnetized  are  said  to  have  some- 
thing ethereal  or  illuminated  about  their  whole  person,  re- 
minding us  of  their  direct  relation  with  the  supernatural ; 
their  voices  are  clear  and  solemn.  If  this  condition  reaches 


268 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


actual  clairvoyance , they  are  stated  to  be  able  to  give  ac- 
curate information  of  things  lying  outside  the  natural 
purview  of  our  faculties,  to  read  sealed  letters,  tell  the  time 
marked  by  a watch  laid  on  the  pits  of  their  stomachs,  read 
the  thoughts  of  others,  see  into  the  future  and  at  a distance, 
and  so  on.  Lastly,  such  persons  give  revelations  about 
heavenly  things  and  things  of  another  world,  about  the 
goings-on  in  heaven  and  hell,  the  condition  of  things  after 
death,  about  spirits  and  the  souls  of  departed  persons,  etc. 
etc. ; but  it  has  been  noticed  these  revelations  always  agree 
in  the  most  remarkable  manner  with  the  views  of  the 
churches  or  clergy  under  whose  influence  the  somnambu- 
list happens  to  be. 

Clairvoya?ice,  in  its  present  form , but  not  in  its  essence, 
is  an  invention  of  modern  times.  Among  the  ancient 
Greeks,  the  soothsaying  Pythoness  on  her  tripod  was  a 
clairvoyayite  of  an  antique  kind,  who  was  prompted  by  the 
hierophant  to  give  her  answers,  the  same  as  the  answers  of 
our  modern  somnambulists  bespeak  prompting.  During 
the  middle  ages,  the  various  outbreaks  of  religious  insanity 
brought  similar  manifestations  of  inspiration  in  their  wake. 
An  interesting  example  of  this  sort  is  yielded  by  the  often- 
repeated  stories  of  the  exaltes  in  Languedoc.  An  instance 
of  modern  inspiration,  almost  more  remarkable  than  the 
foregoing,  is  offered  by  the  “mediums”  in  America,  who 
pretend  that  they  are  employed  by  spirits  hovering  between 
heaven  and  earth  to  make  writings,  oftentimes  very  volumin- 
ous, known  to  the  public.  Mediums  receive  their  inspiration 
in  a half  unconscious  condition,  and  write  down  things  which 
far  transcend  their  knowledge  and  ability.  One  of  the  most 
notable  and  most  celebrated  of  those  mediums,  A.  J. 
Davis,  living  near  New  York,  and  writing  in  a theosophi- 
cal  sense,  had  made  so  close  an  acquaintance  with  the 
spirits  that  he  could  give  their  weight  within  three  or  four 
ounces  ! 

There  can  be  no  scientific  doubt  that  all  alleged  cases  of 
clairvoyance  or  supernatural  inspiration  rest  on  fraud  or 


SEAT  OF  THE  SOUL. 


269 

illusion.  Clairvoyance , that  is,  perception  beyond  the 

natural  reach  of  the  senses,  is,  on  physical  grounds,  an  im- 
possibility. It  is  a natural  law,  which  can  be  denied  by  none, 
that  man  requires  eyes  to  see  and  ears  to  hear,  and  that 
the  senses  are  subject  to  a certain  limit  in  space,  which  they 
are  unable  to  exceed.  No  one  can  read  an  opaque  sealed 
letter,  nor  see  from  Europe  to  America,  nor  look  into  the 
future,  nor  read  the  thoughts  of  others,  nor  perceive  with 
closed  eyes  what  passes  around  him,  nor  perform  intel- 
lectual work  which  transcends  his  knowledge  or  ability. 
Those  truths  rest  on  natural  laws  which  are  immutable,  and 
of  which,  by  analogy  with  natural  laws  generally,  it  may 
be  said  that  they  admit  of  no  exception  ; none  the  less 
there  are  philosophers  who  hold  that  in  the  somnambulist 
the  subject  is  relieved  of  the  non-real  but  merely  subjective 
limits  of  time  and  space,  and  that  therefore  an  insight  into 
the  future  and  into  distance  is  conceivable  and  possible. 

In  reality  it  has  never  been  possible  to  substantiate  such 
a deviation  from  the  regular  course  of  nature  ; or  in  other 
words,  no  reasonable  and  unprejudiced  person  has  ever 
observed  such  a deviation.  Spirits,  ghosts  and  miracles 
have,  until  now,  been  seen  only  by  children  or  by  imbecile 
and  superstitious  people.  Whenever  such  pretended  super- 
sensual  manifestations  have  been  closely  looked  into,  they 
have  come  to  nothing.  All  the  twaddle  about  the  intrusion 
of  a higher  or  spiritual  world  into  ours,  or  of  the  existence 
of  departed  spirits,  has  been  found  to  be  unmitigated  non- 
sense. No  dead  man  has  ever  yet  returned  to  the 
earth.  There  are  neither  table-turning  nor  other  spirits. 
“Science,”  says  F.  A.  Lange,  “knows  but  one  kind  of 
spirit,  the  human."  All  this  admits  of  no  doubt  in  the 
eyes  of  the  scientist  who  has  trained  himself  by  observation 
and  experience  of  Nature  ; constant  contact  with  Nature 
and  her  laws  has  imparted  to  him  a deep  conviction  that 
these  laws  admit  of  no  exception  whatsoever.  No  doubt 
the  majority  of  people,  that  is  to  say  the  great  multitude, 
think  otherwise,  for  they  are  always  inclined  to  give  more 


270 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


credence  to  one  fool  than  to  the  sayings  of  seven  wise  men. 
There  is  no  help  for  them  but  education. 

The  absolute  impossibility  of  the  existence  of  such  a thing 
as  clairvoyance  having  been  conclusively  proved  by  science, 
each  alleged  instance  of  such  second  sight  has  been  shown 
by  sober  and  trustworthy  observers  to  rest  on  mere  decep- 
tion or  delusion.  As  far  back  as  the  year  1783,  when  the 
famous  magnetizer  Anton  Mesmer  happened  to  be  in  Paris, 
a scientific  commission,  headed  by  the  famous  Bailly , 
made  a full  report  on  the  subject,  in  which,  as  the  result  of 
a careful  examination,  it  was  stated  that  the  whole  matter 
was  a downright  swindle,  resting  upon  hallucination,  de- 
ception of  the  senses,  excitement  of  the  imagination  and 
tendency  to  imitation.  The  Paris  Academy  of  Medicine 
arrived  at  the  same  result  by  numerous  and  searching  ex- 
periments. In  the  year  1837  this  Academy  offered  a prize  of 
3000  francs  to  any  one  who  would,  within  three  years  from 
date,  read  through  a board.  No  one  obtained  the  prize. 
In  the  year  1853  a scientific  commission  appointed  ad  hoc 
at  Geneva  went  through  a number  of  experiments  with  M. 
Lassaigne  and  Madame  Prudence  Bernard , a celebrated 
Paris  clairvoyante,  but  the  result  was  purely  negative. 
Clairvoyance  has  been  nowhere,  whenever  proper  rules 
have  been  made  to  exclude  fraud  and  deception.  In  the 
same  year,  1853,  Louise  Braun,  of  Berlin,  the  well-known 
miracle-working  maiden  of  the  Schifferstrasse,  who,  for 
four  years,  had  deceived  thousands  of  people  and  had 
actually  been  asked  by  the  highest  authority  in  the  land  to 
restore  sight  to  a blind  king,  was  convicted  by  a jury  as  a 
common  swindler.  In  the  year  1857,  Prof.  Pefiton  of  Bos- 
ton offered  a prize  of  500  dollars  for  clairvoyance  or  for  the 
exercise  of  supernatural  powers,  as  for  instance  playing  a 
piano  or  tilting  a chair  without  touching  the  object.  No 
less  than  fourteen  of  the  most  famous  American  mediums 
tried  for  it,  but  without  result.  One  of  the  four  professors 
of  the  commission  presided  over  by  the  famous  Agassiz 
declared  on  June  29,  1857,  that  the  whole  was  deception 


SEAT  OF  THE  SOUL. 


27I 

and  fraud,  and  cautioned  the  public  against  such  practices. 
It  is  nevertheless  true  that  among  the  clear-headed  Yan- 
kees spiritualism  flourishes  to  a large  extent  and  that  year 
by  year  it  supplies  hundreds  of  inmates  to  the  lunatic 
asylums.  The  contagious  nature  of  this  description  of 
mental  disease  has  been  lately  (1878)  shown  in  an  Italian 
town  in  the  province  of  Udine,  where  one  person  who  pro- 
fessed to  be  possessed  with  “ evil  spirits”  gradually  made 
a large  number  of  possessed  people  (mostly  women),  of 
whom  some  claimed  to  be  prophetesses  and  clairvoyantes. 
The  district  was  finally  put  under  martial  law,  and  seven- 
teen of  the  ‘ ‘ possessed  ” were  conveyed  to  the  asylum  at 
Udine.  (Compare  the  report  of  Dr.  Colin  in  the  Annales 
d’  hygiene.) 

The  author  has  had  an  opportunity  of  carefully  watching 
a clairvoyante,  of  whom  remarkable  stories  were  related, 
under  circumstances  in  which  fraud  or  any  idea  of  personal 
gain  on  the  part  of  her  magnetizer  was  hardly  to  be  thought 
of.  In  this  instance,  the  clairvoyance  of  the  lady  provedsuch 
a dead  failure  that  all  the  revelations  she  made  were  either 
false  or  else  expressed  in  such  general  terms  that  there  was 
really  no  meaning  in  them.  During  the  clairvoyant  state 
she  gave  the  most  ludicrous  reasons  for  her  blunders.  Her 
clairvoyance  having  turned  out  an  egregious  failure,  she 
passed  into  a state  of  celestial  ecstasy,  in  which  she  con- 
versed with  her  Ange  or  guardian  angel,  and  repeated 
religious  verses.  In  doing  so,  she  once  came  to  a dead  stop, 
and  to  assist  her  memory,  had  to  begin  the  stanza  over  again. 
No  such  thing  as  a condition  bespeaking  higher  intel- 
lectual faculties  was  revealed  during  her  ecstasy ; her 
diction  was  quite  commonplace,  and  her  expression  awk- 
ward and  uncultured.  The  author  left  her  with  the  con- 
viction that  she  was  an  impostor,  who  deceived  her  pro- 
tector. Yet  there  were  gentlemen  in  the  company  who 
would  not  believe  that  there  was  any  fraud. 

After  all  that  has  been  said,  it  cannot  be  doubtful  that  such 
supersensual  and  supernatural  powers  do  not  exist  and  can 


272 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


never  have  existed,  and  that  there  is  no  sense  in  the  state- 
ment that  the  soul  under  such  circumstances  flies  from  the 
brain  to  the  sympathetic  system  and  there  unconsciously 
achieves  unnatural  things. 

Sympathetic  or  miraculous  cures  all  rest  either  on  fraud 
or  on  imagination,  except  so  far  as  the  psychological  power 
of  faith  or  imagination  may  come  into  play.  Their  range 
is  as  wide  as  the  world  and  as  old  as  history.  Homer’s 
great  hero,  Achilles,  possessed  wonderful  powers  of  heal- 
ing in  his  right  toe,  and  Plutarch  relates  that  king  Pyrrhus 
healed  hypochondriasis  by  rubbing  with  his  right  toe.  In 
Egypt,  the  emperor  Vespasian  performed  miraculous 
cures  with  his  foot.  To  say  anything  further  on  the  physi- 
cal impossibility  of  such  cures  would  be  an  insult  to  the 
understanding  of  our  readers. 

The  same  remark  applies  to  the  appearance  of  spirits  in 
whatever  form  they  may  come,  whether  as  regular  ghosts, 
or  as  table  and  furniture  spirits,  or  as  Weinsberg  demons, 
or  as  Davenport’s  press,  bell  or  trumpet  spirits.  Such 
astounding  aberrations  of  the  human  mind  can  only  be  met 
with  the  soothing  words  of  Vitale , “that  even  the  most 
ludicrous  follies  find  heads  that  are  made  to  believe  in 
them.” 

As  regards  forebodings  and  second  sight  by  which  things 
or  circumstances  are  seen  or  known  that  have  happened, 
are  happening,  or  shall  happen  at  other  times  or  in  other 
places,  and  in  which  the  prescience  of  death  forms  the 
principal  part,  all  that  has  already  been  said  of  claivoyance 
holds  good  for  them  as  well.  It  is  a sad  sign  of  the  times 
and  of  philosophic  error  that  we  find  even  excellent  writers 
and  learned  men,  prompted  by  the  pressure  of  philosophical 
prejudice,  who  advocate  such  notions,  and  periodicals  of 
high  standing  that  are  not  above  imbuing  the  public  with 
such  horrible  nonsense. 

The  wide  range  of  dreams  has  lately  been  turned  to 
account  in  exactly  the  same  way.  Their  psychological 
significance  — or  rather  non-significance  — has  long  been 


SEAT  OF  THE  SOUL.  273 

recognized  by  the  common  proverb : “ Traume  sind 
Schdume  ! ’ ’ (Dreams  are  mere  froth.) 

Somnambulism  (sleep-walking,  lunacy,  and  somnambu- 
lism proper)  is  a condition  of  which,  unfortunately,  very 
little  is  known  by  exact  and  trustworthy  observations.  Yet, 
even  without  possessing  an  accurate  knowledge  of  them,  we 
are  able  to  designate  as  fables  and  accordingly  reject  the 
mythical  and  absurd  stories  related  about  somnambulists. 
No  somnambulist  can  run  up  walls,  or  speak  in  languages 
unknown  to  him,  or  achieve  intellectual  tasks  which  are 
above  the  reach  of  his  faculties.  Apparently  there  is 
nothing  more  than  the  mere  outcome  of  memory  in  all  that 
seems  mysterious  in  the  whole  matter. 

A certain  form  of  artificially  induced  night  or  sleep-walk- 
ing or  artificial  somnolency  is  termed  hypnotis77i  (from  the 
Greek  word  vnvo<r,  sleep)  ; this  had  been  known  for  a length 
of  time,  but  only  of  late  has  it  been  brought  under  general 
observation  by  the  exhibitions  of  the  Danish  magnetizer, 
Hansen.  It  is  a condition  of  sleep  or  stupefaction,  arti- 
ficially induced  by  external  influences  on  the  nerves  of  the 
senses  or  of  the  skin,  and  generally  accompanied  by  a loss 
of  sensation,  muscular  rigidity  and  partial  palsy  of  the 
nerves  and  senses  ; it  apparently  consists  in  a functional 
disturbance  or  suspension  of  activity  in  certain  parts  of  the 
cortex  of  the  cerebrum.  It  therefore  belongs  rather  to  the 
province  of  pathology  than  of  physiology,  for  there  are  but 
few  persons  who,  having  a leaning  that  way  owing  to  a 
certain  irregularity  in  the  condition  ot  their  nervous  or 
blood  system,  can  be  thrown  into  hypnotism.  In  this  case 
there  can  be  no  peculiar  nor  special  power  of  the  mag- 
netizer or  experimenter,  nor  can  the  phenomenon  be  traced 
to  the  development  of  supernatural  capabilities,  for  all  the 
experiments  tried  in  this  direction  have  completely  failed  ; 
the  whole  effect  is  brought  about  by  strictly  natural  causes.  It 
is  probable  that  hypnotism  accounts  for  much  that  occurs 
at  exhibitions  of  animal  magnetism,  which  the  public  are 
unable  to  understand,  e.  g.  the  loss  of  sensation  or  a start- 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


274 

ling  magnetization  from  a distance  ; and  it  is  not  likely 
that  a long  time  will  pass  before  we  shall  find  out  the  true 
nature  of  this  highly  interesting  condition  by  accurate 
observations. 

From  all  that  has  been  said  in  this  and  in  the  previous 
chapters,  we  are  led  to  endorse  the  words  of  O.  Ule,  who 
says  : “It  cannot  be  denied  that  perception  by  the  senses 

is  the  source  of  all  truth  and  of  all  error,  and  that  the 
human  mind  is  a product  of  metabolism.’’ 


Innate  ideas. 


Nihil  est  in  intellect!!,  quod  non  fuerit  in  sensu. 

There  is  in  our  mind  nothing  that  has  not  been  in  our  senses. — Moleschott. 
The  secret  of  direct  knowledge  is  sensation. — L.  Feuerbach. 

THE  question  whether  there  are  such  things  as  what 
Voltaire  calls  ide'es  innees  and  Locke  designates  as 
innate  ideas , is  one  of  the  oldest,  and  in  our  opinion 
one  of  the  most  important  items  of  research  in  Nature.  By 
answering  this  question  we  satisfy  ourselves  also  as  to 
whether  man,  the  product  of  a higher  world,  has  received 
the  form  and  environment  of  this  existence  as  something 
alien  and  foreign  to  his  own  essence,  with  the  tendency  to 
shake  off  the  earthly  veil  and  to  return  to  his  spiritual 
origin  ; or  whether  he  is  in  a necessary  and  indissoluble 
connection,  in  his  spiritual  as  well  as  in  his  bodily  nature, 
with  the  world  that  has  produced  and  conceived  him,  and 
whether  he  has  received  his  own  essence  from  this  world 
in  such  a way  that  he  cannot  be  separated  from  it  without 
perishing  himself — as  the  plant  cannot  exist  and  live 
without  the  maternal  soil.  The  question  is  not  one  shrouded 
in  an  impenetrable  mist,  but  it  has,  as  it  were,  flesh  and  bone 
to  it  and  can  be  understood  without  that  philosophic  clatter 
of  words,  which  too  many  people,  unfortunately,  still  re- 
gard as  the  true  language  of  wisdom.  Happily,  that  philo- 
sophical labor  of  Sisyphus  to  which,  in  Germany,  during 
the  first  half  of  our  century,  so  many  eminent  men  devoted 
their  lives  and  their  efforts  to  no  purpose,  has  met  with  a 

stout  barrier  in  our  own  time  in  the  appearance  of  empiri- 
cs) 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


276 

cal  or  experimenal  science  and  the  vast  success  achieved 
by  it.  The  mere  philosophical  phraseologists  with  their 
obscure  and  prolix  language  are  getting  fewer  and  fewer 
every  day,  and  the  tendency  of  the  age  is  an  honest 
striving  after  philosophic  truth  and  clearness,  and  after  the 
revival  of  a philosophy  based  upon  the  criticism  of  actual 
facts. 

The  French  philosopher  Descartes , or  Cartesius,  taught 
that  the  soul  entered  the  body,  armed  with  every  possible 
knowledge,  and  having  only  forgotten  it  when  leaving  the 
mother’s  womb,  gradually  came  to  remember  it  again 
later  on.  The  English  philosopher  Locke , the  founder  of 
Sensationalism  (born  1632),  argued  against  this  view  with 
great  force  and  contended  against  the  theory  of  innate 
ideas.  According  to  him,  all  ideas  spring  on  the  one  hand 
from  experience  and  observation,  on  the  other  from  in- 
ward reflection  on  that  which  has  been  acquired  by  ex- 
perience or  observation.  In  this  he  followed  his  famous 
countryman  Thomas  Hobbes  (born  1588),  who  had  taught 
even  more  plainly  that  all  knowledge  originated  in  ex- 
ternal experience  and  that  reason  and  understanding 
were  nothing  but  reckoning  with  impressions  arising  from 
sensations  and  conveyed  by  the  nerves.  According  to  both, 
the  course  of  knowledge  is  not  from  the  general  to  the 
special  or  individual,  but  the  reverse  ; the  latter  precedes 
the  former. 

Upon  the  strength  of  actual  and  incontrovertible  facts  we 
have  no  hesitation  in  declaring  ourselves  opposed  to 
the  theory  of  innate  ideas,  opinions,  or  truths,  as  set  forth 
by  Plato  or  Descartes.  There  are  no  prepared  conceptions 
in  our  thoughts,  neither  are  there  any  innate  ideas  or  moral 
truths  which  remain  unchanged  at  all  times,  under  all  cli- 
mates, and  among  all  individuals  and  nations.  On  the 
contrary,  daily  experience  clearly  proves  that  exactly  the 
opposite  is  the  case,  and  that  in  these  things  the  greatest 
possible  variety  may  be  found  everywhere.  It  further 
teaches  us  most  conclusively  that  thought  in  man,  as 


INNATE  IDEAS. 


277 


Virchow  remarks,  “develops  but  gradually,  ” keeping  pace, 
in  doing  so,  with  the  number  and  importance  of  the  im- 
pressions received,  and  in  the  working-out  of  these  by 
the  organ  of  thought.  Man,  the  same  as  any  animal,  is  de- 
veloped gradually  in  the  maternal  womb  scarcely  to  be 
distinguished  in  form  and  size  from  an  insignificant  plasm, 
by  the  eye,  even  with  the  help  of  the  microscope.  At  a 
certain  stage  of  this  developement,  the  embryo  becomes 
capable  of  movement  within  the  womb,  but  these  move- 
ments are  not  spontaneous  ; they  are  induced  by  what  is 
called  reflex.  The  embryo  does  not  think,  it  is  not 
self-conscious,  and  when,  as  Prof.  Kussmaul  assumes, 
intelligence  begins  to  develop  in  its  lowest  form,  this  takes 
place  only  by  means  of  the  obscure  sensations  which  may 
be  caused  by  touching  the  sides  of  the  womb  and  by  the 
absorption  of  the  amniotic  fluid.  No  trace  of  remembrance 
of  this  embryonic  condition  is  ever  found  in  man’s  after-life. 

In  connection  with  this  it  is  important  to  glance  at  the 
somewhat  ludicrous  scientific  discussion  which  has  taken 
place  as  to  the  exact  period  of  the  quickening  of  the  human 
embryo , a controversy  which  became  of  practical  value 
directly  the  killing  of  the  embryo  began  to  be  considered 
a moral  and  legal  offence.  Seeing  that  such  a crime  can 
only  be  committed  against  a living  being,  it  was  of  the 
greatest  importance  to  know  at  what  period  the  personal 
soul  assumed  its  seat  or  place  in  the  embryo  during  the 
progress  of  gestation.  The  scientific  and  logical  impossi- 
bility of  fixing  a date  proves  the  absurdity  of  the  whole 
theory  according  to  which  a higher  power  breathes  into 
the  foetus  or  unborn  being  a ready-made  soul,  equipped 
with  certain  ideas.  Accordingly,  the  Roman  jurists  put 
forth  the  view  that  the  embryo  should  not  be  regarded  as 
a distinct  being,  but  only  as  a part  of  the  maternal  body, 
belonging  to  the  mother  and  being  within  her  power.  The 
destruction  of  the  embryo  was  therefore  permitted  by  law 
and  custom  among  the  Roman  women,  and  the  Greek 
philosophers  Plato  and  Aristotle  declared  themselves  in 


278 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


favor  of  this  custom.  The  Stoics  considered  that  the  child 
only  received  a soul  when  it  first  began  to  breathe.  In  the 
time  of  the  Roman  jurist  Ulpianus  (A.  D.  200),  the  de- 
struction of  the  foetus  was  first  prohibited,  and  this  indeed 
was  owing  to  the  influence  of  Christianity,  which  regarded 
the  fcetus  as  an  immortal  being,  partaking  of  Adam’s  fall, 
and  therefore  doomed  to  everlasting  damnation  if  it  was 
killed  unbaptised.  The  Corpus  Juris  fixed  the  fortieth  day 
after  conception  as  the  period  of  the  soul  entering  into  the 
foetus  ! The  later  jurists  were  of  opinion  that  conception, 
quickening  and  psychical  life  all  occurred  simultaneously  — 
a view  which  is  not  consonant  with  scientific  experience. 
Any  one  who  has  ever  seen  a human  or  animal  ovum 
under  the  microscope,  with  the  spermatozoa  that  have 
penetrated  within  it,  can  only  smile  at  this  idea  of  an  egg- 
soul.  No  doubt,  this  germinal  matter  must  be  imbued  with 
the  physical  and  material  tendencies  and  dispositions  that 
are  inherited  from  the  parents,  and  on  the  basis  of  which 
its  psychical  or  intellectual  faculties  are  developed  later  on 
in  the  same  way  as  its  physical  characteristics  ; but  it 
would  be  utterly  preposterous  to  speak  of  such  a thing  as  a 
real  psychical  or  spiritual  stock  existing  therein,  or  of  its 
innate  notions,  knowledge  or  ideas. 

In  earlier  ages  we  meet  with  no  such  religious  and  philo- 
sophical exuberance  as  is  inherent  to  ours  and  which  often 
causes  the  simplest  things  to  be  looked  upon  in  a false 
light.  Moses  and  the  Egyptians  held  the  deliberate  opinion 
that  the  child  in  the  mother’s  womb  has  no  soul.  Ac- 
cording to  the  morality  of  the  Talmud,  the  unborn  child  is 
only  a part  of  the  mother,  and  artificial  abortion  is  per- 
missible. This  was  also  the  case  throughout  all  antiquity, 
and  continues  the  same  now  among  a large  number  of  non- 
Christian  nations.  In  Arabia,  the  Islam  was  the  first  to 
put  an  end  to  this  pernicious  offence  against  public  morals. 

Neither  is  it  possible  or  conceivable  that  at  the  birth,  or 
at  the  moment  when  the  severance  takes  place  between 
mother  and  child,  a ready-made  soul,  that  has  been  espy- 


INNATE  IDEAS. 


279 


ing  that  very  instant,  suddenly  makes  its  appearance  and 
takes  possession  of  the  new  dwelling,  in  the  same  way  as 
the  evil  spirit  entered  the  possessed.  The  psychical  or 
spiritual  existence  of  the  individual  develops  gradually  and 
very  slowly  as  a result  of  the  interaction  that  takes  place 
between  the  individual  and  the  external  world  by  means  of 
the  awakening  senses.  It  is,  as  we  have  seen  already, 
quite  possible,  nay,  it  seems  certain,  that  in  the  womb, 
chiefly  by  hereditary  transmission,  the  bodily  organization 
of  the  new  individual  acquires  certain  tendencies  and  pre- 
dispositions which,  at  a subsequent  period,  when  impres- 
sions from  without  arrive,  will  develop  into  intellectual 
properties  and  characteristics.  Both  among  animals  and 
men  there  may  be  transmitted,  from  parents  to  their  young, 
gradually  developed  tendencies,  mental  habits,  or  disposi- 
tions of  the  nerve-system  or  the  thought-organ,  acquired 
during  life,  and  tending  in  a definite  direction  ; but  a con- 
scious conception,  idea  or  clear  intellectual  knowledge  can 
never  be  inborn  as  such .* 

The  theory  put  forward  by  Rudolf  Wagner,  one  of  our 
most  distinguished  physiologists,  in  conjunction  with  the 
philosopher//  Lotze,  as  though  the  existence  of  an  im- 
materal,  divisible  and  transmissible  soul-substance  were 
proved  by  the  physiology  of  generation  and  the  trans- 
mission of  mental  peculiarities  from  parents  to  children,  is 
utterly  untenable  and  rests  on  the  false  notion  that  the 


"The  sucking  of  the  newly-born  child  at  the  mother's  breast  is  not  the  result  of 
a conscious  thought  or  a voluntary  act,  but  is  purely  reflex  ; in  other  words,  it  is 
brought  about  mechanically  by  the  aid  of  a well-known  process  in  the  nerves,  in- 
dependently of  volition  and  consciousness.  The  child  therefore  not  only  sucks  at 
the  breast,  but  at  anything  put  into  its  mouth.  There  are  also  children  who  have 
to  be  taught  with  much  trouble  to  suck  properly.  Here  again  inherited  tendency 
or  impulse  may  come  into  play.  See  Schneider’s  Der  thi.rische  Wille,  (Leipzig, 
1880)  Altogether,  if  in  the  life  of  men  or  still  more  of  animals  there  are  often 
found  phenomena  which  have  the  appearance  of  innate  ideas,  these  are  always 
to  be  explained  by  the  laws  of  “ heredity,”  first  set  in  the  right  light  by  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Darwinian  theory.  On  this  question  full  and  complete  details  may  be 
found  in  the  Author’s  pamphlet  on  Die  Macht  der  Vererbung , (Leipzig,  1882),  as 
well  as  in  the  work  by  Th.  Riblot  on  Heredity,  (Leipzig,  1876),  which  deals  with 
the  matter  treated  of  here. 


280 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


germinal  matter  of  animals  has  actual  psychical  contents. 
Such  cannot  be  divided,  nor  transmitted,  nor  inherited. 

The  further  development  of  the  childish  mind,  proceed- 
ing by  sensational  paths  and  in  conformity  to  the  teaching, 
training,  and  example  received,  always  within  the  deter- 
minate limits  of  its  bodily  organization  and  conditions, 
militates  so  clearly  and  irrefutably  in  favor  of  the  objective 
origin  of  the  soul  that  no  theoretical  argument  is  capable 
of  shaking  it.  While  the  mind  grows  in  strength  and 
practice,  while  external  impressions  cumulate  and  are  re- 
peated, an  internal  picture  of  the  external  world  forms 
itself  slowly  and  gradually  on  the  maternal  basis  of  the  ex- 
isting organ  of  thought,  and  views,  ideas  and  conceptions  are 
created.  A long  and  toilsome  period  must  elapse  before 
man  reaches  full  self-consciousness  and  learns  to  gradually 
turn  his  organs  and  limbs  to  certain  uses,  and  before  he 
distinguishes  himself  as  a person  from  the  All.  An  illus- 
tration of  this  is  that  children  never  speak  of  themselves  at 
the  outset  in  the  first  person.  This  gradual,  unbroken,  and 
partly  unconscious  mental  growth,  causes  man,  in  the 
sequel,  when  in  full  possession  of  his  mental  faculties,  to 
forget  his  origin,  to  despise  his  mother,  the  world,  and  to 
regard  himself  as  the  direct  son  of  heaven,  from  which  he 
imagines  that  knowledge,  or  his  whole  conceptual  world, 
has  come  as  a spiritual  gift. 

But  he  is  taught  better  by  an  unprejudiced  survey  of  his 
past  and  a glance  at  those  unfortunate  ones  to  whom 
Nature  has  denied  the  possession  of  one  or  more  of  the 
senses,  and  who,  such  as  deaf  and  dumb  persons,  can  only 
be  educated  partially  into  a condition  worthy  of  humanity. 
The  same  holds  good  of  those  unhappy  creatures  who,  by 
avarice  or  cruelty,  have  been  shut  up  as  children  in  dark 
isolated  places,  and  there  held  sequestrated  of  all  human 
fellowship  and  kept  without  any  mental  impulse  ; or  again 
of  men  who,  from  their  earliest  childhood,  have  grown  up 
far  away  from  human  society,  in  woods,  among  animals, 
and  so  on.  They  live  and  feed  like  animals,  they  have  no 


INNATE  IDEAS. 


281 


psychical  sensation,  save  the  craving  for  food,  and  show  no 
trace  of  that  godly  inspiration  or  “ divine  spark  ” which 
in  the  spiritualistic  view  should  be  “ innate”  in  man. 

The  animal  world  also  affords  clear  proofs  in  opposition 
to  the  theory  of  innate  ideas,  although  the  so-called  in- 
stinct of  animals  has  been  put  forward  as  strikingly  sup- 
porting this  theory.  In  a future  chapter  we  will  try  to  show 
that  nowhere  is  there  to  be  found  an  instinct,  in  the  generally 
accepted  sense  of  an  unconscious,  immutable,  irresistible, 
never-erring  natural  impulse,  directed  to  the  achievement 
of  definite  objects,  and  whose  origin  can  only  be  explained 
by  divine  or  supernatural  intuition  ; but  that  animals,  like 
men,  think,  learn,  perceive,  experience  and  reflect,  al- 
though in  a less  developed  proportion  or  degree.  More 
particularly  are  animals  taught,  like  men,  and  they  do  learn 
by  the  influences  of  their  surroundings,  of  parents,  experi- 
ence, age,  example,  etc. , even  though  they  may  be  moulded 
more  than  are  men,  to  one  or  another  mode  of  thinking, 
acting,  or  feeling,  by  the  tendencies  and  dispositions  of  the 
nervous  system  inherited  from  their  parents  and  ancestors. 
Thus,  the  well-known  proficiency  exhibited  by  song-birds  in 
singing  is  by  no  means  innate  as  such,  but  the  innate  ten- 
dency must  be  called  forth  and  developed  by  teaching 
and  example.  Therefore  the  identical  kind  of  birds,  such 
as  goldfinches,  have  quite  different  songs  in  different 
countries  ; many  songsters  imitate  alien  songs  ; and  single 
birds,  especially  those  that  are  reared  in  solitary  confine- 
ment, always  remain  clumsy  singers  and  sing  strange  notes  ; 
in  some  places  there  are  no  good  singers,  because  the  best 
have  constantly  been  caught  and  can  give  no  instruction  ; 
the  yellow-hammer  of  Germany  has  a cadence  quite  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  the  Alps  ; no  two  singers  are  found  to 
be  quite  identical ; and  individual  birds  are  often  heard  to 
regularly  rehearse  their  songs. 

An  attempt  has  also  been  made  to  use  animals  as  living 
advocates  of  the  theory  of  innate  ideas,  by  arguing  thus  : 
Animals  possess  senses  just  the  same  as  man  does,  and 


282 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


often  much  keener  ones,  yet  they  remain  but  animals.  But 
those  who  adduce  this  as  evidence  overlook  the  general 
differences  that  exists  between  man  and  animal,  especially 
the  difference  in  the  size  and  organization  of  the  thought- 
organ,  as  well  as  the  difference  of  physical  structure  and  of 
the  conditions  of  life.  The  senses  are  not  the  producers, 
but  only  the  mediators  of  intellectual  qualities.  They 
transmit  impressions  from  without  to  the  brain  and  nervous 
system,  which  elaborate  them  in  conformity  with  their 
material  nature  and  energy.  Without  the  senses  this 
whole  process  cannot  go  on,  and  therefore  the  senses  are 
the  source  from  which  all  knowledge  arises  directly.  But 
even  with  the  senses,  however  keen  they  may  be,  the  pro- 
cess can  only  go  on  to  a limited  extent,  when  the  thought- 
apparatus  is  not  well  formed  or  developed.  In  a former 
chapter  we  spoke  at  some  length  on  the  relationship  that 
exists  between  the  animal  and  the  human  brain.  The 
brain  possesses  innate  talents  or  dispositions  to  be  active  in 
one  direction  or  another,  but  it  possesses  no  innate  ideas, 
views,  conceptions  or  knowledge.  Nay,  all  these  talents 
and  dispositions  will  ever  remain  without  reality  and  with- 
out development,  if  impressions  from  without  are  wanting  ; 
these  are  just  as  necessary  for  the  evolution  of  a real  men- 
tal or  psychical  capacity  as  one  chemical  body  is  necessary 
to  form  a chemical  compound  with  another. 

The  existence  of  certain  general  ideas  or  mental  con- 
ceptions has  been  brought  forward  in  refutation  of  the 
sensational  theory  ; these,  it  is  alleged,  rule  so  largely  and 
with  such  power,  definiteness  and  generality  in  the  life  of 
the  individual  and  of  nations,  that  it  is  impossible  to  regard 
them  as  originating  empirically  or  through  experience ; 
therefore,  it  is  said,  they  must  have  originated  in  human 
nature  as  such,  and  be  indelibly  stamped  thereon  by  a 
higher  power.  Among  these  are  to  be  reckoned  above  all 
metaphysical,  aesthetic  and  moral  conceptions,  such  as  the 
ideas  embodied  in  the  words  true,  beautiful  and  good. 

These  objections  are  easily  met.  First  of  all  it  must  be 


INNATE  IDEAS.  283 

remembered  that  what  is  called  the  ideal  is  not  the  work 
of  a single  individual,  but  is  the  intellectual  blossom  or 
fruit  won  by  the  whole  race  and  by  the  united  toil  of  many 
centuries  and  countless  generations.  The  idea  thus  gradu- 
ally acquires  a certain  historical  right  and  objective  form, 
so  that  in  time  the  individual  is  no  longer  obliged  to  per- 
sonally go  through  the  whole  process  from  the  beginning, 
but  only  needs  to  take  in  that  which  exists  already  ; and 
in  doing  so  he  is  powerfully  assisted  by  the  disposition  of 
his  organs  of  thought  toward  this  special  form  of  activity, 
inherited  from  his  parents  and  ancestors.  Only  slowly  and 
gradually  the  aboriginal  primal  man,  tossed  about  wildly 
by  the  storm  of  his  animal  desires,  rose  from  mental  in- 
anity to  the  idea  or  ideal. 

“Art,  poetry,  science,  morality,  all  these  highest  mani- 
festations of  the  human  mind,”  says  Ribot,  “are  like  a 
fragile  and  costly  plant,  that  has  come  up  late  and  been 
fertilized  by  the  long  toil  of  countless  generations.  The 
idea  has  not  revealed  itself  once  and  for  all  ; it  unveiled  it- 
self gradually.” 

Without  this  necessary  retrospect  at  the  historical  evolu- 
tion of  the  ideal,  it  may  appear  to  the  individual  — who 
has  acquired  it  from  the  first  moment  of  his  existence  by  a 
thousand  invisible  threads,  and  who  suddenly  finds  it  in  his 
consciousness  — as  though  that  ideal  must  necessarily  be 
innate.  But  it  could  never  have  been  evolved  in  historical 
time  without  that  definite  relation  of  the  objective  world  to 
the  perceptive  faculty  of  the  individual.  It  therefore  be- 
speaks a very  limited  range  of  ideas  to  be  so  much  bound 
up  in  supernatural  notions  as  to  say,  like  Liebig , that  we 
do  not  know  “ whence  the  ideal  originated.” 

The  same  argument  holds  good  for  “a  priori"  ideas 
relating  to  certain  forms  of  thought  or  perception,  such  as 
time , space  and  causality , with  regard  to  which  many 
philosophers  maintain  that  they  were  originally  implanted 
in  our  minds  prior  to  and  independently  of  all  experience, 
and  that  we  are  therefore  only  able  to  think  according  to 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


284 

these  forms.  This  latter  remark  is  doubtless  true,  but  not 
because  the  human  spirit  was  originally  so  formed  by  a 
Higher  Power,  but  because  the  ceaseless  interaction  that 
has  been  kept  up  from  time  immemorial  between  the 
human  mind  and  the  external  world  has  not  had  and  could 
not  have  had  any  other  result.  Perhaps  also  the  extension 
in  space  of  our  organ  of  thought,  and  the  succession  in 
time  of  brain-processes,  are  sufficient  in  themselves  to  ex- 
plain this  apparent  innateness  of  the  conceptions  of  time 
and  space. 

Another  thing  must  also  be  noted,  which  reduces  to 
nothing  the  divine  or  supernatural,  and  therefore  innate 
origin  of  ideas,  as  set  forth  by  the  ideal  philosophers  : If 
sesthetic,  moral  and  metaphysical  ideas  were  innate,  direct 
and  supernatural,  it  is  obvious  that  they  would  have  to 
show  a perfect  similarity  everywhere  and  under  all  circum- 
stances ; they  would  require  to  have  an  absolute  value,  and 
an  absolute  worth.  But  in  reality  we  find  that  they  are  in 
the  highest  degree  relative  and  changing,  that  they  exhibit 
the  greatest  and  widest  divergencies  at  different  times 
and  among  different  nations  and  individuals  — which  di- 
vergencies are  so  great  that  the  very  opposite  takes  place. 

As  far  as  aesthetic  conceptions  are  concerned,  no  stronger 
proof  can  be  given  of  the  unstable  and  changing,  relative 
and  undecided  character  of  these  than  what  is  called  fashion , 
which  is  often  pleased  with  the  most  marvellous  and  repul- 
sive things  and  not  unfrequently  with  the  most  incon- 
ceivable monstrosities.  The  ideas  of  beauty  are  like  the 
ideas  of  suitability.  A thing  appears  suitable  or  beautiful 
to  us,  because  we  are  accustomed  to  or  acquainted  with  its 
existence  or  appearance,  because  it  has  become  suited  to 
our  eye,  or  because  the  sensation  of  the  eye-movement  oreye- 
stimulus  has  gradually  adapted  itself  to  it.  On  the  same 
ground,  we  should  in  all  probability  find  it  no  less  beauti- 
ful and  suitable  if  it  had  gradually  attained  this  agreement 
with  our  want  or  sensation  under  some  very  different  shape. 
Therefore,  as  a rule,  all  those  sights  appear  beautiful  to 


INNATE  IDEAS.  285 

man  which  most  frequently  come  before  him  and  excite  his 
perceptive  apparatus  in  an  accustomed  fashion,  while  all 
unacustomed  or  anomalous  impressions  produce  the  con- 
trary effect.  Things  which  at  other  times  and  amongst 
other  people  aroused,  or  still  arouse,  the  greatest  admira- 
tion or  delight,  appear  to  us  repulsive  or  revolting,  while 
on  the  other  hand  we  are  charmed  with  that  to  which 
others  are  indifferent.  Thus,  classical  antiquity,  despite  its 
high  aesthetic  culture,  had  scarcely  a conception  of  the 
beauties  of  Nature  which  we  admire  so  highly,  and  it  min- 
gled in  its  works  of  art  human  and  animal  forms  in  a 
manner  that  seems  to  us  unbeautiful  and  undignified.  South- 
ern people  admire  only  clear  bright  colors,  because  their 
eyes  are  accustomed  to  a brilliant  light-stimulus,  while 
Nothern  folk,  less  accustomed  to  this,  give  the  preference  to 
softer  darker  shades. 

It  is  impossible,  as  Darwin  very  accurately  remarks,  that 
there  should  be  in  the  human  mind  any  general  standard 
of  beauty  in  relation  to  what  lies  immediately  around  us, 
or  in  relation  to  our  own  bodies,  seeing  that  in  this  we 
meet  the  strangest  varieties  or  antitheses.  A Chinaman 
considers  a woman  charming  who  is  as  fat  as  possible,  has 
stunted  feet,  oblique  eyes  and  large  ears,  whereas  all  these 
are  to  our  taste  repulsively  ugly.  The  Japanese  admire 
only  a yellow  skin  and  stain  their  teeth  black,  because  to 
them  it  seems  hideous  to  have  white  teeth  like  a dog  ; 
while  our  poets  find  nothing  they  praise  more  highly  than 
the  dazzling  pearls  of  their  fair  ladies’  teeth.  The  inhabit- 
ants of  the  island  of  Ceylon,  by  chewing  betel-nut,  have  be- 
come so  accustomed  to  the  sight  of  black  teeth,  that  white 
teeth  appear  ugly  to  them  ; and  the  long  slightly  curved 
noses  of  the  Cinghalese  met  with  so  little  favor  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Chinese  conquerors  of  their  island,  in  comparison 
with  their  own  flattened  ones,  as  to  make  them  send  home 
an  official  report,  saying  that  the  dwellers  in  Ceylon  were 
an  ugly  race,  with  beaks  in  their  faces  instead  of  noses. 
The  Batokas  of  South  Africa  knock  out  the  two  upper 


286 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


incisors,  when  persons  of  either  sex  come  to  the  age  of  pu- 
berty ; in  consequence  of  this  the  lower  incisors  grow  to  an 
unusual  length,  and  the  whole  face  acquires  an  unpleasant 
and  aged  appearance.  Yet  every  girl  who  has  not  under- 
gone this  horrible  operation  considers  herself  as  ugly.  At 
all  times  and  in  all  countries,  generally  speaking,  people  of 
the  most  diverse  races  and  nations  have  endeavored  to  im- 
prove or  beautify  their  bodies  by  disfiguring  or  cutting 
about  different  parts  of  it,  so  as  to  suit  the  general  or  indi- 
vidual taste.  Striking  out  or  pulling  out  teeth  or  filing 
them  short  or  to  a point  — the  very  teeth  which  are  neces- 
sary for  use  and  beauty  and  the  loss  of  which  is  artificially 
repaired  by  civilized  men  — pulling  out  the  hair  of  the 
head  and  beard,  which  we  regard  as  the  most  beautiful  or- 
nament of  a male  or  female  head,  or  the  eye-brows, 
without  which  we  cannot  imagine  a handsome  human  face  ; 
piercing  the  nose,  lips  or  ears,  and  putting  in  wooden  plugs 
or  other  foreign  bodies  into  the  openings  ; bringing  about 
artificial  malformations  of  the  skull  ; fancifully  painting  or 
pricking  the  skin  in  the  most  disgusting  fashion  — all  these 
and  similar  arts  are  the  practical  results  of  the  conception 
of  beauty  among  most  savage  tribes,  among  whom,  as 
Darwin  remarks,  the  human  face  only  appears  to  exist  for 
the  purpose  of  being  changed  and  disfigured  in  the  most 
variegated  and  extraordinary  manner. 

Lady  Baker,  the  wife  of  Sir  Samuel  Baker,  was  advised 
by  the  wife  of  a chief  in  Latoaka  to  pull  out  the  teeth  of  the 
lower  jaw  and  to  wear  a long,  pointed  crystal  in  the  under- 
lip, in  order,  as  she  thought,  to  strikingly  improve  her 
appearance  ! A hollow  or  bowl-shaped  ring,  called  a pe- 
lele,  worn  in  the  lower  lip,  gives  a hideous  appearance  to 
the  women  of  some  South  African  negro  tribes.  Living- 
stone asked  a chief  what  was  the  good  of  this  custom.  The 
chief,  quite  astonished  at  this  question,  replied  : “ For  the 
sake  of  beauty,  of  course.  That  is  the  only  beauty  women 
have.  Men  have  beards,  women  have  not.  Where  would 
they  be  without  pelele  ? ” 


INNATE  IDEAS. 


287 

The  last  anecdote  reminds  us  of  the  pride  taken  by  men 
of  bearded  races  in  their  beards,  while  those  of  beardless 
races  take  the  greatest  pains  to  pull  every  single  hair  off 
their  faces,  as  something  decidedly  repulsive.  The  beard- 
less New  Zealanders  have  a proverb  that  there  is  no  wife 
for  a hairy  man,  while  the  bearded  Turks  regard  the  beard 
as  so  important  that  they  swear  by  that  of  their  prophet. 
Our  European  women,  too,  no  doubt  regard  a beard  as 
beautiful  ; for  they  have  a proverb  that  a kiss  without  a 
beard  is  like  soup  without  salt.  Hearne,  a trustworthy  ob- 
server, who  lived  for  years  among  the  North  American  In- 
dians, says  : “ Ask  a Northern  Indian  what  constitutes 
female  beauty,  and  he  will  answer  : ‘ A broad  flat  face, 
small  eyes,  high  cheek-bones,  three  or  four  oblique  black 
lines  on  each  cheek,  a low  forehead,  a large  broad  chin,  a 
knotty  hooked  nose,  a yellow  brown  skin,  and  breasts 
hanging  down  to  the  waist.’  ” 

These  examples  of  fundamental  differences  of  aesthetic 
conceptions  might  easily  be  multiplied.  If  these  concep- 
tions have  anything  in  common,  it  is  due  to  the  community 
of  race,  surroundings,  and  general  conditions  of  life,  and  in 
a narrower  sphere  to  the  force  of  custom,  of  education,  ex- 
ample and  heredity.  It  may  easily  be  shown  that  no  form 
of  art  has  ever  succeeded  in  creating  an  ideal,  severed  en- 
tirely from  reality,  and  not  having  borrowed  or  rather 
gathered  together  the  whole  of  its  parts  from  the  external 
world.  The  task  of  art  is  to  unite  the  scattered  lovelinesses 
of  units  into  one  harmonious,  though  but  mentally  con- 
ceived, ensemble.  For  the  rest  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  in  the  world  of  art  and  thought  of  each  individual  na- 
tion the  influence  of  its  own  interior  and  exterior  idiosyn- 
crasy or  peculiarity  may  readily  be  recognized. 

In  exactly  the  same  way,  moral  conceptions  are  to  be 
properly  looked  upon  as  the  result  of  gradual  learning  and 
training.  Nations  in  a state  of  Nature  lack  almost  all  moral 
qualities,  and  commit  cruelties  and  follies  of  which  civilized 
peoples  have  no  conception  ; nay,  both  friend  and  foe  con- 


288 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


sider  that  such  actions  are  the  right  thing.  The  moral 
conception  of  property , for  instance,  is  as  a rule  either  ab- 
sent entirely,  or  present  only  in  the  most  limited  degree  ; 
hence  the  great  tendency  of  all  savage  nations  towards 
thieving.  Among  the  Indians,  a well  executed  theft  is  con- 
sidered a most  meritorious  act  ; even  the  ancient  Lacede- 
monians looked  upon  a theft  carried  out  with  great  dexterity 
as  worthy  of  the  highest  commendation.  To  the  ever  poor 
and  hungry  gypsies,  larceny  does  not  appear  as  a crime, 
but  simply  as  a necessity.  According  to  Captain  Mon- 
travel’s  report,  the  Kanak’s  of  New  Caledonia  divide  what 
they  possess  with  every  one  who  is  in  need,  and  are  so  ready 
to  give  away  whatever  they  receive  to  the  first-comer,  that 
among  them  an  object  of  great  value  often  passes  rapidly 
through  a thousand  hands.  Even  among  nations  of  a 
higher  degree  of  development  the  sense  of  property  is  often 
very  weak,  and  the  Chinese  and  Slavs  scruples  as  to  pro- 
perty are  well  known  not  to  rank  among  points  of  honor. 

What  applies  to  theft,  applies  likewise  to  lying,  cheating, 
murder  and  incest,  which  are  customary  and  licit,  nay, 
even  commended,  among  tribes  in  a state  of  nature  and 
among  half-civilized  nations.  Thus,  with  the  aborigines  of 
Further  India,  Dr.  J.  Heifer  ( Asiatische  Reisen ) tells  us,  it 
is  a regularly  followed  maxim  of  worldly  wisdom  never  to 
speak  the  truth,  even  when  there  is  no  occasion  for  lying  ; 
and  according  to  the  same  author,  this  fault  is  shared  in  by 
almost  all  Asiatic  nations.  According  to  Stone’s  report 
(Journ.  of  the  Anthrog.  Jnstii.),  love  of  truth  and  common 
honesty  are  quite  unknown  among  the  Motus,  a race  of 
New  Guinea.  They  are  inclined  only  to  lying,  cheating 
and  stealing,  and  do  not  regard  theft  as  a crime.  The 
feeling  of  gratitude  is  unknown  to  them.  They  believe  in 
no  God  and  practice  no  religious  observances.  Brehm 
( Reiseskizzen  aus  Nordost-Afrika,  1855)  relates  that  “ the 
negroes  of  East  Soudan  (Nile-country)  not  only  palliate 
cheating,  theft  and  murder,  but  regard  them  as  acts  quite 
in  keeping  with  man’s  dignity.”  Lying  and  deceit  are  re- 


INNATE  IDEAS. 


289 

gatded  by  them  as  a triumph  of  intellectual  superiority 
over  stupidity.  The  reports  of  the  experienced  African 
traveller  Burton  tell  us  even  worse  things  of  the  negroes  of 
Eastern  Africa.  Their  reason  is  not  like  ours ; it  gropes 
without  logic  in  nothing  but  contradictions.  Compassion, 
uprightness,  gratitude,  prudence,  family  affection,  modesty, 
conscientiousness  and  remorse,  are  unknown  things  to  the 
East  African  ; he  has  no  history,  no  traditions,  no  poetry, 
no  morality,  no  imagination,  no  memory,  no  thought  be- 
yond the  most  limited  range  of  mental  perceptions,  no  idea 
of  the  great  mysteries  of  life  and  death,  no  religion  and  no 
faith  beyond  the  crudest  fetishism.  He  knows  of  no  grief 
nor  mourning  over  the  death  of  relatives,  no  attachment 
between  parent  and  child  ; on  the  contrary,  in  his  case, 
as  among  wild  beasts,  a natural  hostility  prevails  between 
father  and  son.  He  murders,'  robs,  steals,  lies,  gambles, 
drinks  and  begs,  to  almost  any  extent.  Captain  Speke  re- 
lates of  the  Somalis,  the  inhabitants  of  a district  lying  to 
the  south  of  Aden,  and  separated  from  the  Arabian  coast 
by  the  gulf  of  Aden,  that  a successful  fraud  pleases  them 
better  than  any  other  way  of  getting  their  livelihood,  and 
that  the  narration  of  such  deeds  is  the  chief  topic  of  their 
social  gatherings  {Blackwood’ s Edinburgh  Magazine). 
Among  the  Fiji  Islanders  the  shedding  of  blood  is  a virtue 
and  not  a crime.  Whoever  the  victim  may  be,  whether 
man,  woman  or  child,  whether  slain  in  battle  or  murdered 
by  treachery,  to  be  in  any  way  a recognized  murderer  is 
the  condition  most  eagerly  coveted  by  every  Fiji  Islander  ! 
Children  murder  their  parents,  and  parents  their  children 
without  compunction.  Gratitude  is  so  little  known  to  them 
that  when  the  captain  of  a foreign  ship  had  for  two  months 
nursed  a native  who  had  injured  his  hand  on  board  of  his 
ship,  and  had  eventually  cured  him,  this  native  being  de- 
nied a gun  for  which  he  had  asked  on  leaving,  set  fire  to 
the  captain’s  drying  house,  containing  goods  to  the  value 
of  300  dollars.  Among  the  savages  generally,  murder  is 
considered  as  quite  worthy  of  commendation,  and  the 


2 go 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


more  skulls  of  murdered  men  any  one  has  to  show,  in 
whatever  method  he  may  have  come  by  them,  the  more  he 
is  honored.  With  them,  to  forgive  an  enemy  is  a great 
mistake  ; the  highest  virtue  is  revenge.  In  Hindustan 
there  actually  exists  a terrible  league  of  professional  mur- 
derers, called  Thugs,  who  practice  secret  murder  as  a re- 
ligious rite.* 

Werner  Munzinger  ( Ueber  die  Sitten  und  das  Recht  der 
Bogos,  Winterthur)  relates  of  the  Bogos,  a tribe  of  North- 
ern Abyssinia,  that  among  them  the  ideas  of  good  and  evil 
are  perfectly  confused  and  signify  nothing  more  than  use- 
ful and  useless.  Virtuous  are  to  them  the  fearless,  the 
avengers  of  blood,  the  silent  ones  who  hide  their  hatred 
within  themselves,  until  a good  opportunity  arises  ; the 
courteous,  the  proud,  the  indolent  who  despise  menial 
work  ; the  magnanimous,  the  hospitable,  the  ostentatious, 
the  prudent.  Robbery  brings  honor,  larceny  only  is  des- 
pised. In  the  same  way,  Waitz  relates  ( A?ithropologie 
der  Naiurvolker , 1859)  that  such  a savage,  on  being  asked 
about  the  difference  between  good  and  evil,  at  first  con- 
fessed his  ignorance,  but  after  some  reflection  said  that  it 
was  good  when  one  took  other  people’s  wives,  but  bad 
when  one’s  own  were  taken  ! A similar  story  is  told  by 
Sir  John  Lubbock  of  the  natives  of  Polynesia,  who  in  their 
language  are  not  able  to  express  the  moral  difference  be- 
tween good  and  bad.  Upon  a missionary  trying  to  make 
them  understand  that  it  was  bad  and  wicked  to  consume 
their  fellow-creatures,  they  answered  with  great  composure  : 
“ But  we  assure  thee  that  it  is  very  good.”  Another  sav- 
age, to  whom  a missionary  was  trying  to  convey  the  idea 
of  the  pangs  of  an  evil  conscience,  could,  according  to  E. 
Tylor,  form  a conception  of  it  only  by  likening  it  to  a se- 
vere stomach-ache.  Up  to  this  very  day,  the  Albanians 
have  no  expression  in  their  language  for  the  ideas  of  good 
and  bad. 


* It  is  related  of  such  an  Indian  Thug  that  he  felt  remorse,  because  he  had  not 
strangled  and  robbed  as  many  travelers  as  his  father  had  done  before  him. 


INNATE  IDEAS. 


29I 


According  to  the  report  of  the  Russian  traveler  N.  von 
Nidducho-Maclay,  the  savage  Papuans  in  the  interior  of 
the  Malay  Peninsula  have  no  idea  of  incest,  and  the  fathers 
exercise  the  jus  primce  noctis  on  their  marriageable 
daughters — a custom  prevalent  also  in  other  places,  e.  g., 
in  the  Eastern  Moluccas.  Among  the  Damaras,  a South 
African  tribe,  who  practice  polygamy  and  have  no  idea  of 
incest,  Anderson  found  ( Explor . in  South-  Western  Africa , 
London,  1856)  mother  and  daughter  together  in  the  harem 
of  a chief.  Unions  by  marriage  between  brothers  and  sis- 
ters are  an  abomination  to  us,  but  in  antiquity,  especially 
in  Persia  and  Egypt,  they  were  frequent  and  were  thought 
quite  honorable  and  commendable. 

Suicide  also  was  regarded  among  the  ancients  as  an 
honorable  death,  worthy  of  a great  and  good  man,  whilst 
at  the  present  day  it  is  branded  as  a sin  by  the  religious 
feeling  of  civilized  nations. 

Infanticide  is  rightly  regarded  by  civilized  nations  as 
one  of  the  most  odious  of  crimes,  and  as  an  abominable 
sin.  But  it  is  a fact  that  almost  all  civilized  nations  went 
in  former  ages  through  a period  in  which  it  was  regarded 
as  perfectly  natural  and  permissible.  This  was  the  case 
even  down  to  Christian  times,  for  infanticide  was  first  pro- 
hibited by  Constantine  in  the  Roman  Empire,  throughout 
which  it  was  quite  general  in  the  first  century  after  Christ. 
Even  at  this  very  day,  child-murder  is  a customary  thing 
among  almost  all  savage  tribes,  probably  owing  to  the  dif- 
ficulty of  procuring  means  of  subsistence,  or  of  conveying 
the  children  while  migrating  from  place  to  place.  It  is  a 
fact  that  custom  and  habit  gradually  stunt  even  the  power- 
ful feeling  of  motherly  love  to  such  an  extent  as  to  make 
mothers  help  to  devour  their  own  infants.  Infanticide 
it  most  generally  practiced  in  the  South  Sea  Islands,  where 
two-thirds  of  the  infants  born  are  killed,  and  half  the  un- 
born are  destroyed  by  abortion.  Babies  at  the  breast  are 
always  killed  at  the  mother’s  death,  and  buried  with  her. 
In  Australia  also,  in  Central  Africa,  in  India,  among  the 


292 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


Indians  of  North  America  and  among  various  nomadic 
tribes,  such  as  the  Kamtskatkans,  infanticide  is  still 
practised,  while  in  China  the  murder  of  female  infants  is 
quite  common.  Among  many  savages,  especially  the 
nomadic,  those  effete  with  old  age,  the  same  as  children, 
are  put  to  death  and  eaten.  This,  according  to  Captain 
Wilkes’  report,  is  the  principal  reason  why  among  the 
Fiji  Islanders  there  are  but  few  people  living  above  the  age 
of  forty.* 

But  not  only  among  savages,  but  also  among  civilized  na- 
tions, and  among  individuals  belonging  to  such,  are  moral 
conceptions  often  undeveloped  or  contradictory  to  a remark- 
able extent.  These  conceptions  vary  very  much  and  are  mere 
questions  of  degree,  or  in  other  words,  they  depend  in 
each  instance  on  the  actual  circumstances  of  the  case  or  on 
individual  views.  This  is  true  in  such  a measure  that  it  al- 
ways seems  an  impossibility,  and  will  continue  to  be 
impossible,  to  obtain  anywhere  an  absolute  and  specific 
definition  of  what  is  meant  by  good.f  Thousands  upon 
thousands  of  examples  taken  from  daily  life,  may  easily  be 
quoted  in  support  of  this.  If  at  the  first  blush  there  ap- 
pears to  be  something  constant  and  immutable  in  the  prin- 
cipal laws  of  morality,  the  reason  lies  chiefly  in  the  settled 
form  of  legal  enactments  and  social  customs  which  human 
society  has  thought  necessary  and  has  gradually  established 
for  its  own  preservation.  But  since  the  formation  of 
human  communities  must,  on  the  whole,  have  required  the 
same  conditions  everywhere  for  its  maintenance,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  such  enactments  and  customs  should  exhibit 
a certain  similarity  everywhere,  which  is  to  be  accounted 
for  by  strictly  natural  facts.  Nevertheless  they  vary  a 
great  deal  individually  according  to  changing  external  cir- 

* Compare  the  admirable  paper  on  Infanticide  as  a national  custom,  by  C. 
Haberland,  in  the  Globus , 1880. 

t That  the  conception  of  good  cannot  be  defined  is  generally  admitted.  Theo- 
logians have  thought  that  they  could  supply  the  definition  in  saying  : “ That  is 
good,  which  is  enjoined  by  the  commandments  of  God.”  But  the  commandments 
of  God  are,  as  a matter  of  course,  made  up  by  the  theologians  themselves.  Any 
one  can  easily  draw  his  own  inference  from  this. 


INNATE  IDEAS. 


293 


cumstances  and  according  to  the  variations  of  times  and 
opinions.  The  killing  of  an  unborn  foetus  did  not  appear 
to  the  Romans,  as  we  have  already  remarked,  as  an  action 
contrary  to  good  morals  ; at  this  day,  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
severely  punished,  while  the  Chinese  still  practice  infanti- 
cide and  look  upon  it  as  the  right  thing.  Paganism  re- 
garded the  hatred  of  an  enemy  as  the  highest  virtue  ; 
Christianity  on  the  other  hand  demands  love  even  for  an 
enemy.  Now  which  of  the  two  things  is  moral  ? A 
number  of  things  now  branded  by  custom  as  abominable 
crimes  were  at  one  time  thought  perfectly  proper.  Train- 
ing, teaching,  example,  make  us  acquainted  with  these 
precepts  day  by  day,  and  lead  us  on  to  believe  in  an  in- 
nate moral  law  or  “conscience,”  the  component  parts  of 
which  are  found,  on  closer  inspection,  to  be  either  sections 
of  the  criminal  code,  or  incarnate  expressions  of  the  cus- 
toms of  social  life.  When  a Mohammetan  woman  feels 
remorse  for  having  unveiled  her  face,  or  a Hindu  in  sup- 
posing that  he  has  eaten  something  unclean  or  lost  caste, 
no  one  is  likely  to  ascribe  such  a feeling  to  anything  more 
than  a social  prejudice.*  At  the  same  time,  there  is  a 
great  difference  between  the  laws  of  the  state  and  those  of 
morality  ; a yet  greater  discrepancy  exists  between  those 

♦The  innate  moral  law,  or  “conscience,”  or  the  “ categorical  imperative,”  as 
Kant  calls  it,  is  now  relegated  to  the  realm  of  fancies  by  most  philosophers. 
Schopenhauer  terms  it  an  "infant-school  morality.”  A characteristic  item,  ac- 
counting for  the  origin  of  it,  is  the  observation  made  among  savage  races,  that 
the  moral  precepts  current  among  them  are  always  limited  to  their  own  tribe  and 
observed  within  it,  because  non-observance  would  endanger  the  existence  of  the 
tribe;  whereas  in  dealing  with  a strange  tribe  every  moral  or  rightful  theory  is 
cast  aside,  and  every  form  of  cruelty  and  license  is  not  only  allowed,  but  is 
actually  enjoined.  The  conception  of  a common  "humanity,”  or  a human  right 
prevalent  throughout  the  race,  is  an  achievement  of  civilized  modern  historical 
progress.  But  even  at  the  present  day,  national  antipathy  or  chauvinism  breaks 
out  anew,  whenever  opportunity  offers,  thus  showing  that  the  race-hatred  in 
man’s  heart,  having,  as  it  were,  an  atavistic  tendency,  is  yet  far  from  being  ex- 
tinguished, and  only  requires  a spark  to  make  it  burst  once  more  into  flame.  In 
reality,  conscience  and  the  moral  sense  are  nothing  more  than  the  expression  of 
social  instincts  that  have  grown  strong  by  long  habit,  and  depend  on  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  laws  of  civilized  social  life  and  on  custom.  It  is  therefore  not 
surprising  that  we  sometimes  find  in  degraded  criminals,  who  have  grown  up  in 
the  midst  of  brutality  and  coarseness,  an  entire  absence  of  remorse  and  moral 


294 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


of  the  State,  of  custom  and  of  religion,  and  those  pre- 
scribed to  each  individual  in  each  special  case  by  his  own 
nature  and  reflection.  These  differences  afforded  of  yore 
the  greatest  tragic  motifs  both  in  history  and  poetry,  and 
will  continue  to  do  so.  The  State  and  Society  often  brand 
as  a crime  what  is  morally  a noble  deed.  The  whole  deep- 
seated  difference  between  the  ideas  of  “juridical”  and 
“moral”  springs  but  from  outward  conditions,  which  is 
the  best  proof  of  the  fact  that  the  idea  of  good  has  no  ab- 
solute standard.  Most  crimes  are  committed  by  persons 
belonging  to  the  lower  classes,  and  are  almost  invariably 
the  demonstrable  results  of  bad  training  and  education,  or 
of  an  innate  weakness  of  the  intellectual  faculties.  The 
whole  moral  nature  of  man  is  most  intimately  connected 
with  his  outward  conditions.  The  higher  our  degree  of 
civilization,  the  higher  must  also  be  the  standard  of  morality 
and  the  greater  the  diminution  of  crime.  And  as  regards  such 
a thing  as  an  inborn  idea  of  right,  the  very  notion  of  it  is  sim- 
ply preposterous.  “All  jurists,  ’ ’ says  Czolbe  (loc.  cit.),“  base 
right  upon  an  empirical  or  effective  contract  between  men, 
without  which  it  is  as  inconceivable  as  the  theorems  of  geom- 
etry are  without  the  conceptions  of  lines,  angles,  figures,  or 
limited  bodies.’  ’ Ifthere  were  really  an  objective  right,  would 
it  be  possible  for  a difference  between  right  and  law  to  exist  ? 

The  idea  embodied  in  the  word  true  owes  its  origin  and 
gradual  development  in  even  a greater  degree  to  the  pro- 
gress of  science  and  of  human  knowledge,  and  so  little  can 
it  lay  claim  to  stability  that  men  have  at  all  times  been,  and 
probably  will  always  be  found  breaking  each  other’s  heads 
and  necks  over  its  correct  interpretation.  If,  notwithstand- 
ing this,  the  laws  of  thought  or  logic  exhibit  a certain  un- 
changeable necessity  or  stability,  this  proceeds  from  the 
causes  given  on  page  ioi,  and  also  from  the  fact  of  the  law  of 

feeling.  The  moral  law  itself,  however,  rests  neither  on  a contract,  as  jurists  will 
have  it,  nor  on  an  innate  idea,  as  moralists  contend,  but  it  is  a pure  natural  law, 
enacted,  as  it  were,  by  the  pressure  of  necessity,  without  which  the  existence  of 
human  society  would  be,  and  would  ever  have  been,  a matter  of  impossibility. 
Without  morality  no  society,  and  without  society  no  human  being  can  be 
imagined. 


INNATE  IDEAS. 


295 


thought,  like  the  moral  law,  having  first  arisen  from  a natural 
or  organic  evolution,  and  being  a law  of  nature  determined 
by  the  unchangeable  laws  of  the  Universe.  Human  reason 
as  we  have  shown,  is  but  the  mirrorthat  reflects  the  universe, 
and  logic  and  mechanics  are  the  same  thing. 

Thus  the  most  exact  of  all  sciences,  mathematics,  on  the 
empiric  or  a priori  character  of  which  so  much  has  been 
said  and  written,  rests  on  purely  objective  conditions, 
without  the  existence  of  which  the  mathematical  laws 
themselves  would  be  impossible  ; for  this  reason  most 
mathematicians  are  now  of  opinion  that  mathematics  be- 
long to  the  physical,  and  not  to  the  philosophical  or  specu- 
lative sciences.  The  ideas  of  space,  size,  dimension,  of 
height,  breadth  and  depth  are  all  taken  from  sensative  ex- 
perience and  from  observation,  and  would  never  have 
existed  without.  Numbers  represent  no  absolute,  but  only 
relative  ideas,  which  have  no  reality  apart  from  the  things 
denoted  by  them  ; they  only  represent  the  form  under 
which  we  contemplate  the  reality.  Therefore,  a number 
per  se  and  without  reference  to  an  object  is  a mere  ab- 
straction. The  formation  of  the  numerals,  as  we  are  taught 
by  etymological  records,  did  not  take  place  till  very  late, 
and  seems  to  have  cost  a great  deal  of  labor  to  each  of  the 
nations.  To  this  day  there  exists  many  savage  races  who 
are  very  backward  in  this  respect,  and  to  whom  the  ex- 
pression of  large  numbers  is  a total  impossibility.  The 
savage  negroes  of  Surinam  cannot  count  beyond  twenty, 
and  in  doing  so,  they  take  their  fingers  and  toes  as  sym- 
bols, and  use  even  the  names  of  these  to  designate  the 
figures.  Whatever  exceeds  the  twenty  fingers  and  toes 
they  do  not  know  how  to  count,  and  therefore  call  it  “wiri- 
wiri,”  which  means  : much.  According  to  Sir  John  Lub- 
bock ( Prehistoric  no  Australian  language  has  words 

beyond  the  number  four ; the  Demaras  and  Abepoinas 
count  only  up  to  three  ; some  Brazilian  tribes  no  further 
than  two.  Whatever  exceeds  three,  the  Abepoinas  call 
‘ ‘ Pop,”  or  much.  Many  American  and  African  tribes,  ac- 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


296 

cording  to  Tylor,  denote  the  number  Jive  by  the  expression 
“a  whole  hand”;  for  six  they  say,  ‘‘one  of  the  other 
hand”;  for  ten,  ‘‘both  hands”;  for  eleven,  ‘‘one  of  the 
foot”;  for  twe?ity,  “an  Indian”;  for  one -and-  twenty , “one  of 
the  hand  of  another  Indian  ” ; and  more  briefly,  for  eleven, 
‘‘foot  one”;  for  twelve,  ‘‘foot  two”;  for  twenty, ‘‘the 
whole  person,”  or  ‘‘a  man.”  The  number  one  hundred 
is  designated  as  “ five  men.”  The  Arfakis  of  New  Guinea, 
as  Dr.  A.  E.  Meyer  was  able  to  prove  conclusively,  can 
only  count  accurately  up  to  Jive , and  have  a definite  ex- 
pression for  this  number  only.  In  counting  from  five  to 
ten  they  are  apt  to  blunder  ; but  the  use  of  their  fingers 
helps  them  out  of  the  difficulty.  They  express  twenty  by 
holding  out  fingers  and  toes  together,  and  beyond  this  their 
notions  of  numbers  do  not  extend.  Yet  they  are  in  other 
respects  by  no  means  unintelligent. 

Many  savage  tribes  entirely  lack  expressions  for  general 
notions,  or  properties,  which  are  common  to  different 
bodies,  as  “color,”  ‘‘tone,”  ‘‘tree,”  etc.;  they  have  a 
separate  word  for  each  kind  of  color  and  each  kind  of  tree, 
but  no  general  expression.  According  to  the  Catholic 
missionary,  Father  Baegert,  who  lived  for  a long  time 
among  the  natives  of  lower  California,  these  people  have 
no  words  for  general  notions  or  abstractions,  such  as  life, 
death,  weather,  heat,  cold,  friendship,  truth,  illness,  mas- 
ter, servant,  judgment,  rich,  poor,  pious,  old,  young,  etc.; 
they  have  only  expressions  for  material  things,  which  can 
be  seen  or  felt,  or  for  individual  persons,  such  as  a young 
woman,  an  old  man,  etc.  ( Rep . of  Smithsonian  Insti.  1864.) 

Above  all,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  metaphysical  or 
transcendental  knowledge,  properly  speaking,  and  all  sys- 
tems of  metaphysics,  however  ingeniously  devised,  have 
broken  down  in  course  of  time.  “ Metaphysics,”  says  A. 
Lefevre  very  strikingly,  “ rise  above  that  which  is,  in  order 
to  attain  that  which  is  not.”  All  philosophical  reasonings 
which  leave  the  ground  of  facts  and  objects,  soon  become 
incomprehensible  and  untenable,  and  are  mostly  arbitrary 


INNATE  IDEAS. 


297 

and  subjective  radiations  of  a judgment  formerly  obtained 
empirically  ; they  are  a fantastic  play  upon  words  and 
notions.  Let  any  one  try  if  he  can  to  conceive  of  himself 
a general  notion  or  so-called  abstraction,  without  neces- 
sarily falling  back  on  external  objects  as  examples  ! “Even 
the  highest  ideas,”  says  Virchow,  ( Die  Einheits-Bestre- 
bungen  in  der  wissenschaftlichen  Medicin , neue  Ausgabe, 
1885),  “are  evolved  slowly  and  gradually  from  the  in- 
creasing wealth  of  sensative  experience,  and  their  truth  is 
only  guaranteed  by  the  possibility  of  bringing  forward  con- 
crete examples  of  them  in  the  real  world.” 

As  to  the  often  repeated  assertion  of  the  sudden  appear- 
ance of  general  notions  in  childhood,  it  must  be  wholly 
denied  that  such  an  appearance  ever  takes  place  under 
circumstances  in  which  the  influences  of  education,  sur- 
roundings, example,  etc.,  are  entirely  missing.  The  sense 
of  justice  can  only  develop  in  a boy  when  association  with 
others  enables  him  to  institute  comparisons  and  to  grasp 
the  limits  of  the  various  spheres  of  the  rights  of  others, 
while  the  absence  of  such  conditions  as  a rule  produces 
selfishness,  arrogance  and  impatience.  Not  until  after  a 
tolerably  advanced  age  has  been  reached  does  Society  re- 
cognize personal  responsibility  — and  this  proves  clearly 
enough  that  no  innate  idea  of  right  is  admitted  to  exist  in 
the  child.  Neither  do  the  moral  or  aesthetic  ideas  of  a 
child  show  the  least  trace  of  an  innate  perception.  On  the 
contrary,  children  often  have  very  odd,  and  to  adults  ludi- 
crous tastes.  They  do  not  distinguish,  or  distinguish  only 
with  difficulty,  between  meum  and  tuum ; they  have  no 
conception  of  the  wrongfulness  of  lying  and  stealing  ; they 
are  great  egotists  ; they  show  clear  tendencies  in  the  di- 
rection of  fraud  and  cruelty,  thus  resembling  in  many 
respects  savage  nations,  which,  from  want  of  education  and 
training,  are  very  much  like  big  children.  The  resem- 
blance is  most  striking,  owing  to  the  absence  of  a psychical 
quality  which,  among  civilized  nations,  shows  itself  power- 
fully but  at  the  age  of  puberty,  viz.,  that  of  modesty ; 


298  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

in  this  respect  there  is  no  doubt  that  an  inherited  ten- 
dency or  disposition  comes  into  play  in  the  case  of  civilized 
races.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  reports 
of  Diibok,  Orton,  Schiele  and  others,  an  entire  absence  of 
modesty  is  found  among  the  Australians,  Melanese,  South 
Africans,  Andaman  Islanders,  etc.  Some  go  about  per- 
fectly naked,  or  only  cover  their  sexual  organs  to  defend 
them  against  external  injury,  and  carry  on  sexual  inter- 
course publicly,  like  animals.  The  sculptures  on  ancient 
Indian  temples  prove,  as  Lubbock  remarks,  ( Prehistoric 
Afa?i,  vol.  II.,  page  262)  that  a nation  may  rise  to  a state 
of  considerable  culture,  without  recognizing  the  slightest 
necessity  for  clothing  ; and  even  at  the  present  day,  the 
ideas  of  decency  and  modesty  prevalent  in  India  and  in  the 
Island  of  Ceylon  are  as  wide  apart  from  ours  as  are  the 
two  poles  from  one  another.*  Even  the  ancient  Greeks, 
the  classic  models  of  our  higher  education,  had  scarcely  a 
conception  of  what  we  now  understand  by  modesty  and 
propriety  in  connection  with  sexual  relations.  Adultery 
and  every  form  of  promiscuous  intercourse  were  quite  cus- 
tomary among  them,  and  were  practiced  without  the  least 
fear  of  blame  or  publicity,  while  in  their  theatres  the 
grossest  obscenities  were  shown  on  the  stage.  The  Ish- 
maelites , an  Oriental  religious  sect,  are  perfectly  destitute 
of  any  feeling  of  modesty  ; atrocious  beliefs  and  extra- 
ordinarily cynical  customs  are  the  chief  features  of  the 
Ishmaelitish  form  of  worship.  The  conceptions  of  decency 
and  propriety  current  among  the  Japanese,  a.  people  far 
advanced  in  civilization,  differ  so  fundamentally  from  our 
own,  and  appear  so  indecent  to  us,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
draw  any  parallel  between  their  notions  and  ours.  What 
we  contemptuously  designate  by  “ prostitution  ” is  in  Japan 
the  usual  custom,  and  is  ordered  and  regulated  by  the  laws 
and  under  the  superintendence  of  the  state  ; and  this  view, 
so  strange  to  us,  extends  to  the  whole  public  and  private 

♦See  the  interesting  writings  of  A.  Jacoillot : Voyage  au  pays  des  Bajaderes , 
and  Voyage  an  pays  des  perles. 


Innate  ideas. 


299 

life.  Secret  non-licensed  prostitution  alone  is  not  counte- 
nanced. “It  is  difficult,’’  says  Reinhold  very  strikingly, 
“to  find  any  explanation  of  this  difference,  if  we  do  not 
admit  that  morality  is  a mere  relative  idea.’’  He  who 
maintains,  as  Liebig  does,  “that  the  moral  nature  of 
man  remains  eternally  the  same,’’  can  have  no  conception 
of  the  almost  innumerable  facts  connected  with  this  which 
go  to  prove  the  very  opposite. 

Although  the  sense  of  truth,  of  beauty,  and  of  right, 
must  to  a certain  extent  be  aroused  by  the  influence  of  the 
surroundings  in  every  fairly  educated  person,  that  lives 
under  normal  social  conditions,  it  can  and  must  yet  be 
carried  into  practice  in  order  to  attain  strength  and  value. 
How  differently  does  a learned  man,  accustomed  to  think 
and  enlightened  by  reason,  judge  and  argue,  from  one  who 
devotes  his  whole  energy  to  manual  labor  only  ! How 
very  differently  does  the  man  trained  in  life  and  in  the 
school  of  history  enter  the  lists  for  right  and  justice,  from 
the  unfledged  youth,  who  still  follows  mere  purblind  in- 
ward impulses  ! How  differently  do  the  artist  and  the 
outsider  judge  of  beauty  ! As  a plant  takes  its  root  in 
the  soil,  so  do  we,  along  with  our  knowledge,  thought  and 
feeling,  take  root  in  the  objective  world,  bearing  aloft  the 
blossom  of  the  ideal  ; but,  when  snatched  away  from  that 
soil,  we  must,  like  the  plant,  wither  and  die. 

The  inference  we  derive  from  all  this  and  which  stands  in 
the  closest  connection  with  it,  is  that  we  can  have  no 
knowledge  and  no  idea  of  the  Absolute , that  is  to  say  of 
anything  which  is  beyond  the  sensational  world  around  us. 
Let  the  metaphysicians  seek,  as  they  may,  to  define  the 
absolute  ; let  religion  endeavor,  as  it  may,  to  arouse  be- 
lief in  the  absolute  by  the  theory  of  direct  revelation  — 
nothing  can  hide  this  internal  defect.  All  our  knowledge 
and  perception  is  but  relative  and  arises  only  from  an  anti- 
thetical comparison  of  the  sensational  things  surrounding 
us.  We  have  no  conception  of  darkness  without  light  ; 
none  of  high  without  low,  of  heat  without  cold  ; absolute 


3°° 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


ideas  we  possess  none.  We  are  not  able  to  conceive  other- 
wise than  vaguely,  an  idea  of  “ everlasting  ” or  “ endless,” 
because  our  reason,  limited  sensationally  by  time  and  space, 
finds  in  these  words  an  insuperable  boundary  to  that  idea. 
Since  we  are  accustomed  in  the  sensational  world  to  find  a 
cause  wherever  we  meet  an  effect,  we  have  erroneously  hit 
upon  the  existence  of  a First  Cause  for  all  things,  although 
no  such  cause  is  perceptible  to  the  range  of  our  present 
faculties,  and  although  it  is  at  war  with  scientific  experience. 
“ In  countless  groups  of  natural  phenomena,”  says  Czolbe 
( loc . cit .)  ‘ ‘ it  is  certain  that  they  originate  in,  or  are  the 
effects  of  causes.  From  this  springs  the  mistaken  inference 
that  Nature  itself,  or  the  Universe,  has  a primary  cause. 
But  there  is  not  only  no  experimental  ground  for  the  idea  that 
Matter  and  Space  have  originated  and  can  be  changed  and 
destroyed,  but  not  even  a conception  can  be  formed  of  this. 
We  must  therefore  look  on  Matter  and  Space  as  co-eternal.” 
From  all  this  it  appears  that  there  are  to  be  found  in  no 
direction  clear  scientific  facts  which  compel  us  to  believe  in 
the  existence  of  innate  ideas,  conceptions,  views,  knowl- 
edge, or  thoughts,  implanted  in  our  minds  from  without 
by  a higher  power.  Nature  knows  neither  views  nor  objects, 
neither  psychical  nor  material  conditions  imposed  upon  her 
from  without  or  from  above.  From  the  beginning  to  the 
end  she  has  evolved  organically  out  of  herself,  and  keeps 
evolving  without  ceasing.  We  close  this  chapter  with  the 
words  of  Moleschott,  which  every  one  ought  to  lay  to 
heart:  — ‘‘In  the  school  instruction  on  thought,  sharp 
boys  are  often  much  hampered  in  their  intellectual  pro- 
gress, because  the  instructors  won’t  teach  them  to  form 
their  judgment,  conception  and  inferences  from  plain  ex- 
isting facts.  Despite  the  utter  failure  to  which  they  lay 
themselves  open,  they  continue  seeking  to  impart  in  their 
scholar  the  notion  that  he  must  withdraw  his  eyes  from  the 
green  tree,  and  must  turn  his  thoughts  from  matter,  in 
order  to  attain  to  regular  abstract  ideas,  with  which  the 
lortured  brain  moves  in  a world  of  shadows 


The  Idea  of  God. 


God  is  a blank  tablet,  on  which  there  is  nothing  save  that  which  thou  thyself 
hast  written.— Luther. 

God  is  a thing  intangible,  that  has  no  connection  with  time  or  space.  The  more 
thou  graspeth  at  him,  the  more  he  escapes  thee. — Angelus  Silesius  (1624-1677). 

Man  paints  himself  in  his  gods. — Schiller. 

Whenever  knowledge  takes  a step  forward,  God  recedes  a step  backwards. — 
Naquet. 

IF  it  is  true  that  there  are  no  such  things  as  innate  views 
or  ideas,  it  stands  to  reason  that  the  contention  of 
those  must  be  mistaken  who  assert  that  the  idea  of 
God , or  conception  of  a supreme  personal  being  who  has 
created  the  world  and  who  rules  and  maintains  it,  is  natur- 
ally innate,  necessary  or  instinctive  in  the  human  mind, 
and  therefore  irrefutable  by  any  arguments  drawn  from 
reason.  If  we  believe  the  adherents  of  this  view,  it  is 
proved  by  experience  that  there  are  no  nations  nor  indi- 
viduals, however  savage  or  uneducated,  in  whom  there  is  not 
found  the  idea  of  God  and  the  belief  in  a supreme  personal 
being,  and  that  this  universal  consensus  gentium  is  the  best 
proof  of  the  truth  and  accuracy  of  the  said  idea  itself.  As 
a matter  of  fact  the  exact  opposite  is  proved  by  an  intimate 
knowledge  and  unprejudiced  observation  both  of  indi- 
viduals and  of  nations  in  a savage  and  undeveloped 
condition  ; for,  according  to  the  unanimous  testimony  of 
traders,  philosophers,  navigators  and  missionaries,  there 
exists  a by  no  means  small  number  of  peoples,  who  have 
either  no  trace  of  religious  belief,  or  who  have  it  in  so 
strange  and  imperfect  a form  that  it  scarcely  deserves  the 


302 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


name  of  religion.  If  there  are,  therefore,  many  philos- 
ophers and  naturalists  who  look  to  “ religiosity,”  and 
more  particularly  to  the  idea  of  God  as  the  distinctive 
feature  of  humanity,  the  contention  referred  to  must  either 
be  false,  or  we  must  make  up  our  minds  to  deny  human 
character  to  by  no  means  a small  number  of  actual  and  un- 
doubted specimens  of  mankind. 

“ I cannot  entertain  the  slightest  doubt  in  my  mind,” 
says  the  famous  anthropologist,  Broca,  ‘‘that  there  are 
among  the  lower  races  people  without  worship,  without 
dogmas,  without  metaphysical  conceptions,  without  gen- 
eral creeds,  and  consequently  without  religion.”  The 
traveler  de  Lauture  writes  : “ It  is  a remarkable  error  to 
suppose  that  all  nations  believe  in  a God  ; I have  found 
many  savages  who  had  no  such  idea.”  Sir  John  Lubbock 
(. Prehistoric  Time , vol.  II.,  page  277)  says  : ‘‘Those  who 
hold  that  even  the  lowest  savages  believe  in  a supernatural 
being,  are  maintaining  a theory  which  is  in  most  complete 
conflict  with  fact  ; ’ ’ and  Darwin  ( Descent  of  Man , page  93) 
writes:  ‘‘There  is  ample  evidence,  adduced  not  by  mere 
visitors,  but  by  men  who  have  long  resided  among  savages, 
that  numerous  races  have  existed,  and  still  exist,  which 
have  no  idea  of  one  or  more  Gods,  and  which  have  no 
words  in  their  languages  to  express  such  an  idea.” 

Darwin  himself  (ibidem  page  95)  states  that  in  his  famous 
voyage  on  board  the  Beagle , he  as  well  as  his  companions 
found  that  the  Fuegans  (who  inhabit  the  archipelago  at  the 
extreme  south  of  the  American  continent)  believed  in 
nothing  which  we  should  call  God,  nor  practiced  any  kind 
of  religious  worship.  According  to  R.  Elcho  ( Wester- 
mann’s  Monatshefte , July,  1881,  and  a report  in  thejournal, 
Globus , vol.  XXIX,  No.  21),  the  Californian  Indians  gen- 
erally have  no  idea  or  conception  of  a supreme  or 
supernatural  being,  or  of  a world-preserving  and  world- 
governing  power.  Some  tribes  hold  that  death  is  the  end 
of  everything,  while  others  dream  of  a better  life  in  a land 
lying  west.  When  they  speak  of  a “ great  Man,”  or  of  an 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


3°3 


“ old  Man  above,”  or  the  like,  this  is  only  a modern  form 
in  which  their  ancient  views  are  couched  ; for  this  being 
never  plays  any  part  in  their  affairs,  nor  appears  in  their 
popular  mythology  ; it  creates  nothing  and  preserves 
nothing.  Nature  is  their  only  God,  and  her  servant  is  the 
coyote , a kind  of  dog  or  jackal,  who,  in  their  theory,  made 
the  world  and  all  that  therein  is.  Father  Baegert,  who 
spent  seven  years  as  a missionary  among  the  Californian 
Indians,  states  that  idols,  temples,  religious  ceremonies,  or 
divine  service,  are  perfectly  unknown  among  them,  and 
that  they  neither  believe  in  the  one  true  God,  nor  worship 
false  Gods.  ( Smithson . Contrib.  1863 — 64,  page  390).  The 
same  or  similar  statements  are  made  by  de  la  Perouse, 
Golden,  and  Hearne,  with  respect  to  different  tribes  of 
American  Indians  (compare  Lubbock,  loc.  cit ,,  vol.  II.  page 
274).  The  famous  English  traveler  Bates,  too  (7 he  Na- 
turalist on  the  Amazon , London,  1863),  relates  of  the 
otherwise  more  polished  Brazilian  Indians  on  the  banks  of 
the  Tapajos  and  Cupari  : 11  They  have  neither  an  idea  nor 
a conception  of  a supreme  being,  and  do  not  trouble 
themselves  about  the  causes  of  the  natural  phenomena 
surrounding  them.  They  only  know  one  sort  of  evil,  co- 
bold, who  is  the  cause  of  their  misfortunes.”  Nor  have  any 
of  the  Indian  tribes  dwelling  on  the  banks  of  the  Upper 
Amazon  any  word  in  their  language  to  express'the  idea  of 
God  ; and  the  Caishanas  Indians  who  dwell  in  the  same 
district,  do  not  even  practice  the  ceremonies  in  honor  of 
the  evil  demon  usual  among  the  other  tribes.  The  same 
holds  good  for  many  of  the  South  American  tribes,  visited 
by  Azara  ( Voyages  dans  l ’ Amer.  merid .,  vol  II,  page  3 — 
166).  Father  Dobritzhoffer  relates  of  the  nation  of  the 
Abepoinas  that  to  his  great  surprise  he  did  not  find  in  the 
language  of  these  savages  a single  word  which  signified 
God,  or  a divine  being  (quoted  by  Lubbock,  vol.  II,  page 
276).  Of  the  Indian  tribes  of  the  Payaguas,  living  on  the 
Paraguay,  near  Asuncion,  M.  A.  Baguet  reports  {Bull,  de 
la  Soc.  Geogr.  d'  Anvers,  1878,  vol.  II,  page  63),  that  they 


304 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


have  no  idea  of  a higher  being,  and  that  all  the  attempts  of 
the  Jesuits  to  convert  them  have  egregiously  failed.  Ac- 
cording to  Lubbock  (page  273)  it  is  stated  in  the  missionary- 
reports  on  the  South  American  Indians  of  Gran-Chaco, 
that  they  ‘ ‘ have  no  religion,  perform  no  divine  service,  and 
do  not  possess  the  smallest  idea  of  God  or  of  a supreme 
being.  They  do  not  distinguish  between  right  and  wrong  ; 
they  have  no  hope  of  present  or  future  rewards,  and  no 
fear  of  punishment,  nor  secret  dread  of  a supernatural 
power,  which  they  can  propitiate  by  offerings  or  idolatry.” 
Africa,  the  dark  quarter  of  the  globe,  yields  examples 
equally  striking  of  a total  absence  of  religion  and  belief  in 
God.  Among  the  negroes  of  Oukanyama,  one  of  the  many 
stations  of  South  Africa,  Ladislas  Magyar  could  find  no 
trace  of  any  religion.  They  appear  to  reverence  their 
king  or  chief  as  a supreme  being,  and  seek  to  propitiate 
him  by  human  or  animal  sacrifices.  The  Lakutas,  who  in- 
habit the  district  of  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  were  found  by 
S.  W.  Baker  ( The  Albert-Nyanza , 1867)  to  be  without  any 
trace  of  a religion  or  belief  in  God  ; even  the  fetishism  so 
common  among  negroes  was  perfectly  unknown  to  them. 
According  to  the  reports  of  the  celebrated  Livingstone,  the 
Betjuanas,  or  Bechuanas,  one  of  the  most  intelligent  tribes 
of  Inner  Africa,  as  well  as  all  the  mid-African  tribes,  have 
no  trace  of  worship,  no  kind  of  idols,  and  no  single  re- 
ligious idea,  ( Bull . de  la  Soc.  d' Anthrop.  de  Paris , 1864, 
page  227).  Andersson  ( Travels  in  South  Africa , London, 
1856)  reports  similarly  that  the  language  of  the  Bechuanas 
lacks  a word  for  the  conception  of  a Creator  ; and  the 
missionary  Moffat  relates  of  them  in  his  characteristic  way  : 
“ I have  often  wished  to  find  something  whereby  I might 
reach  the  natives’  hearts  ; I have  sought  among  them  for 
‘ an  altar  to  the  unknown  God,’  for  some  hint  on  the  creed 
of  their  ancestors,  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  or  any 
other  religious  idea.  But  they  have  never  thought  of 
anything  of  the  kind.  When  I spoke  to  the  best  among 
them  of  a Creator,  who  ruled  heaven  and  earth,  of  the  fall 


3°5 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 

of  man  and  the  redemption  of  the  world,  of  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead  and  of  everlasting  life,  it  appeared  to  them  that 
I was  talking  about  things  that  were  more  fabulous,  absurd 
and  ludicrous  than  their  nonsensical  stories  of  lions,  hyenas 
and  jackals.  When  I told  them  it  was  necessary  to  know 
and  believe  such  and  such  teachings  of  religion,  I drew 
from  them  nothing  but  shouts  of  the  greatest  astonish- 
ment, just  as  though  it  were  too  foolish  for  even  the  most 
stupid  people  to  listen  to  it.”  Of  the  Kaffirs,  a race 
known  to  be  well-developed,  both  physically  and  men- 
tally, Oppermann  says  : “ They  have  not  the  most  remote 
conception  of  a supreme  being  ; their  chief  is  their  God.” 
The  harmless  race  of  Hottentots  believe  in  a good  and  a 
bad  spirit,  but  know  neither  temple  nor  divine  service, 
except  some  festive  dances  in  honor  of  the  full  moon,  and 
the  veneration  for  a little  shining  beetle,  which  is  almost 
regarded  as  a God.  Le  Vaillant,  who  lived  a length  of 
time  with  them,  says  that  he  found  among  them  no  trace 
of  religion  nor  of  belief  in  God,  ( Voyages  dans  T Afrique, 
vol.  I,  page  93).  The  Bushmen,  a dwarfish  species  of 
these,  know  of  no  kind  of  divine  worship.  In  the  rolling  of 
the  thunder  they  think  they  descry  the  voices  of  evil 
spirits,  and  they  answer  with  curses  and  oaths.  According 
to  Gustav  Fritsch  {Die  Eingebornen  Siidafrika's,  Breslau, 
1872)  the  Ovaherero  or  Vieh-Damaras  of  South  Africa 
have  no  religion,  but  only  external  superstitious  customs, 
connected  with  witchcraft,  amulets,  spirits  of  animals,  ven- 
eration of  trees,  and  the  like.  Burton  {Trans.  Ethnol. 
Soc.  New  Ser.,  vol.  I,  page  323)  says  of  some  of  the  tribes 
living  around  the  lakes  of  Central  Africa,  that  they  “ be- 
lieve neither  in  God,  nor  in  angels,  nor  in  devils.” 

If  we  glance  at  Australia  and  at  the  islands  of  the  South 
Sea  and  the  Pacific  Ocean,  we  find  the  following:  “The 
native  Australians,”  says  Hasskarl  {Austr alien  und seine 
Colonien,  1849),  “ lack  the  idea  of  a Creator,  and  a moral 
Governor  of  the  world,  and  all  attempts  at  instructing 
them  on  this  point  result  in  non-comprehension,  or  a sud- 


306  force  and  matter. 

den  breaking  off  of  the  conversation.”  The  French  cast- 
away, Narcisse  Pelletier,  who  lived  seve?iteen  years  among 
these  savages  at  Red  Rock  Point,  to  the  south  of  Cape 
Direction,  relates  that  they  have  no  idea  of  a supreme 
being  and  no  kind  of  religious  ceremonies.  Latham  says 
of  the  Australians  that  they  have  not  yet  succeeded  in 
forming  even  the  roughest  outlines  of  a religion,  and  that 
their  mind  seems  too  indolent  even  to  be  superstitious. 
“ What  can  be  done  with  a people,”  a missionary  remarks 
about  them,  “ whose  language  has  no  words  for  ‘justice,’ 

‘ sin,’  and  the  like,  and  to  whose  mind  the  ideas  expressed 
by  these  words  are  wholly  foreign  and  incomprehensible  ? ” 
Sir  M.  Bradley  says  of  an  Australian  tribe  : “ The  mono- 
syllabic language  of  these  savages  consists  of  more  or  less 
animal  sounds.  They  have  no  sort  of  superstitious  ideas, 
and  do  not  show  the  slightest  trace  of  a belief  in  a future 
life,”  (Revue  scient.  1873,  page  473).  The  MotusofNew 
Guinea,  according  to  the  report  in  the  Journal  of  the  An- 
thropological Institute,  believe  in  no  God,  and  practice  no 
religious  rites.  The  spirits  of  the  dead,  they  believe,  go  to 
‘‘Taulu,”a  word  which  apparently  signifies  empty  space. 
In  the  Damood  Island,  between  Australia  and  New  Guinea, 
Jukes  found  ( Voyage  of  the  Fly,  I,  page  164),  “ no  trace  of 
religious  belief  nor  of  divine  worship.”  The  Samoan  Is- 
landers have  neither  temples,  nor  altars,  nor  sacrifices, 
(. Mission  Enterpr.,  page  464).  Dr.  Monnat  says  of  the 
Mincopis,  the  inhabitants  of  the  Andaman  Islands  : “ They 
smear  themselves  with  clay  and  paint,  but  wear  no  clothes. 
They  seem  in  fact  to  be  devoid  of  all  modesty,  and  re- 
semble wild  animals  in  their  habits.  They  have  no  idea  of 
a Supreme  Being,  no  religion,  no  belief  in  a future  state.” 
( Trans.  Etlmol.  Soc.,  II,  page  45).  The  inhabitants  of  New 
Britannia  (Melanesia)  in  the  Pacific  are,  according  to  Dr.  O. 
Finsch,  ( Gartenlaube , 1882,  page  606),  very  good-natured 
indeed,  but  they  have  no  trace  of  a religion  or  of  any  kind 
of  worship  ; the  belief  in  the  existence  of  man  after  death  is 
also  quite  unknown  to  them.  The  Negritos,  or  black 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


307 

aborigines  of  the  Philippine  and  Molucca  Archipelago, 
have,  according  to  Dr.  Th.  Mundt-Lauff  of  London,  no 
kind  of  religion  beyond  slight  traces  of  fire  and  sun-worship  ; 
they  have  neither  idols  nor  temples.  Corpses  are  turned 
with  their  faces  towards  the  sun. 

Similar  phenomena  are  found  even  in  the  ancient  cradle 
of  civilization,  Asia  ; several  famous  and  wide-spread  re- 
ligious systems  have  arisen  here,  in  which  belief  in  God,  or 
the  idea  of  God,  is  utterly  unknown.  An  English  officer 
reports  that  the  Karens  of  the  kingdom  of  Pegu  (India)  be- 
lieve in  no  God,  and  only  recognize  the  action  of  two  evil 
spirits.  The  inhabitants  of  the  Pasummah  Labar,  in  the 
island  of  Sumatra,  pray  to  no  idols  nor  to  any  other  ex- 
ternal object ; they  have  no  priestly  caste,  and  no  idea  of  a 
Supreme  Being  who  created  all  things. 

The  Briti:h  Colonel  Dalton  relates  of  the  Dschuangas, 
a primitive  savage  race  of  India,  who  regard  themselves  as 
the  direct  descendants  of  the  first  man,  that  they  do  not 
believe  in  witchcraft  ; their  language  has  no  expression  for 
God,  heaven  or  hell,  and  so  far  as  is  known,  they  have  no 
conception  of  a future  state.  In  misfortune  they  offer 
fowls  to  the  sun  and  the  earth,  that  they  may  obtain  a 
good  harvest  ; beyond  this  there  is  no  trace  of  any  kind  of 
worship.  The  Khasias,  or  Khasiates,  also  an  Indian  tribe, 
content  themselves  under  such  circumstances  with  the 
breaking  of  hens’  eggs  ; beyond  this  they  have  no  religion, 
so  Dr.  Hooker  (quoted  by  Lubbock,  Prehistoric  A/an,  vol. 
II,  page  227)  tells  us.  Of  the  happy  dwellers  in  the  Liu- 
Kiu  island  of  Amami  Oshima,  near  Japan,  Dr.  Doderlein, 
who  stayed  there  sixteen  days,  and  who  wrote  of  them  in 
the  Mittheil.  der  deutschen  Gcscllschaft  fur  Natur-und 
Volkerkunde  Ost-Asiens  — informs  us  that  they  have 
neither  God  nor  Gods,  nor  prayers,  nor  temples,  nor 
priests.  The  only  objects  of  their  religious  reverence  are 
their  ancestors.  Perhaps  this  worship,  Dr.  Doderlein  con- 
siders, represents  the  original  form  of  the  Japanese  Sintho 
or  Sintu  religion,  which  is  no  longer  to  be  found  in  Japan 


3°8 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


itself.  The  Japanese,  a nation  of  thirty-four  millions,  who, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  all  travelers,  stand  very  high 
in  morality  and  in  social  and  political  customs,  believe 
neither  in  God  nor  in  immortality  ; they  are,  to  use  the 
expression  of  Burrows,  the  American  traveler,  “a  nation 
of  atheists,  ’ ’ or,  according  to  others,  a race  of  skeptics  or 
materialists.  Yet  Alcock,  the  English  traveler,  asserts 
that  national  education  has  made  greater  strides  among  no 
race  on  earth  than  it  has  among  the  Japanese. 

In  connection  with  the  atheistic  religious  systems  of  Asia, 
we  must  note  that  the  famous  religion  of  Buddha,  which 
will  be  more  fully  dealt  with  in  a subsequent  chapter,  knows 
nothing  of  God  or  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and 
preaches  non-existence  as  the  highest  goal  of  freedom. 
Equally  atheistic  with  Buddhism  are  the  two  religious 
systems  of  the  Chinese,  so  that,  according  to  Schopenhauer 
( Ueber  die  vierfache  Wurzel  dcs  Saizes  vom  zureichenden 
Grunde , 2d  edition,  1847)  the  Chinese  language  has  no 
word  for  “God”  and  “creation.”  According  to  the 
reports  of  travelers,  an  entire  moiety  of  the  Chinese  popu- 
lation, indeed  the  more  cultured  and  educated  moiety, 
consists  at  this  day  purely  and  simply  of  atheists,  and 
practices  no  religious  worship  of  any  kind.  In  the  whole 
of  Sanskrit,  too,  the  original  language  of  the  pantheistic 
Aryans,  there  is  no  vocable  which  signifies  to  “ create”  in 
the  Christian  sense  of  the  word.  Altogether,  Schopen- 
hauer holds  that  the  idea  and  revelation  of  a personal  God 
originated  in  but  one  nation,  viz.,  the  Jews,  being  subse- 
quently propagated  in  the  two  religious  systems  which 
proceed  from  Judaism,  viz.,  Christianity  and  Mahomme- 
tanism. 

Even  Europe  is  not  entirely  without  Godless  races.  In 
the  course  of  the  last  journey  which  the  Emperor  of 
Austria  made  through  his  dominions,  he  came,  so  the 
newspapers  state,  to  a town  named  Kolomea  in  Galicia,  in 
the  neighborhood  of  which  lives  a fine,  well-knit  race, 
called  the  Huzules.  Although  they  are  good-natured 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


309 


people  enough,  they  have  scarcely  any  religion,  and  within 
a circle  many  miles  in  diameter,  no  churches  are  to  be  seen. 
Once  a year  only  the  “ pope,”  whom  they  scarcely  know, 
rides  through  the  town  and  baptises  the  new-born  children. 
Yet  these  people  live  well  and  peacefully,  they  die  without 
the  consolations  of  the  church,  and  go  to  heaven,  if  there 
is  one,  just  as  well  as  those  who  go  to  confession  four  times 
a year.  The  Gypsies  also,  who  are  scattered  over  Europe 
and  over  half  the  world,  are,  according  to  the  close  investi- 
gations of  G.  Leland,  ( The  E?iglish  Gypsies  and  their 
Language , London,  1873),  absolute  atheists,  and  have  no 
trace  of  religious  belief,  although  they  have  lived  for  hun- 
dreds of  years  among  nations  with  religious  creeds.* 

We  find  the  same  absence  of  religious  conceptions,  in  our 
sense  of  the  word,  as  among  the  nations  above-named,  so 
within  our  own  midst,  in  individuals  who,  by  education, 
teaching,  or  example,  have  had  no  opportunity  of  becoming 
aware  of  the  idea  of  God.  We  frequently  read  of  men 
appearing  in  the  police-courts  of  great  cities,  such  as  Paris 
and  London,  who  have  not  the  least  idea  of  the  concep- 
tions implied  by  the  words  God,  immortality,  religion, 
etc.  The  British  census  has  shown  that  there  are  millions  of 
people  living  in  England  who  have  never  crossed  the 
threshold  of  a church,  and  who  do  not  know  to  what  sect 
or  religious  creed  they  belong,  f The  blind  deaf-mute, 
Edward  Meystre,  of  whom  Hirzel  gives  a full  account,  had 
no  idea  of  God,  and  could  not  be  brought  to  form  such  an 
idea,  despite  every  effort  that  was  made,  and  although  he 
had  very  good  intellectual  abilities.  The  same  was  the 
case  with  the  famous  blind  deaf-mute  Laura  Bridgeman, 
of  whom  her  governess,  M.  S.  Lamson,  published  a cir- 

* Sir  John  Lubbock  has  collected  a number  of  additional  well-ascertained  ex- 
amples of  tribes  absolutely  without  religion.  See  his  Prehistoric  Time , etc.  See 
also  the  Rev.  F.  W.  Farrar’s  Essay  on  the  Universality  of  Belief  in  God  and  Im- 
mortality, in  the  Anthropol.  Review,  London,  1864,  August,  p.  ccxvii,  et  seq. 

t At  the  present  time  there  are  in  England  a million  persons  who  are  unbap- 
tised and  who  belong  to  no  church.  “What  can  you  tell  me  of  Jesus  Christ?’’ 
enquired  a clergyman  of  a man  in  a street  of  London.  “ Never  heard  of  the  gen- 
tleman,” was  the  answer. 


3io 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


cumstantial  report  (London,  Triiber,  1878),  and  with  a 
second  blind  deaf-mute,  named  in  the  same  work,  called 
Julia  Bruce.*  We  referred  in  a former  chapter  to  the  ani- 
mal and  irrational  nature  of  such  human  beings,  who  have 
remained  without  intercourse  with  their  fellow-creatures,  and 
lack  every  higher  intellectual  quality.  If  Nature  is  not  able 
to  make  herself  felt  with  greater  power,  without  teaching 
and  training,  it  must  be  assumed  that  she  knows  nothing 
at  all  of  any  such  innate  ideas  bespeaking  a supernatural 
origin.  All  these  ideas  are  implanted  by  education  ; they 
proceed  from  the  reflection  of  others  or  of  ourselves,  and 
are  not  innate. 

Anyone  who,  regardless  of  all  this,  persists  in  contending 
that  the  idea  of  God  is  innate,  cannot  but  be  led  to  the 
conclusion  that  we  are  likewise  born  with  a belief  in  the 
devil,  or  the  idea  of  an  evil  spirit  endowed  with  supreme 
power,  devil,  Satan,  one  or  more  demons  or  whatever  else 
it  may  be  called.  For  it  is  in  evidence  that  the  belief  in 
supernatural  powers  hostile  to  man  has  held  in  all  ages  and 
among  all  peoples,  a sway  of  scarcely  less,  and  among 
savages  one  of  far  greater  extension  and  importance  than 
the  belief  in  a beneficent  God.  ‘ ‘ The  belief  in  such  terri- 
ble and  malevolent  spirits,”  says  Darwin,  ( Descent  of 
Man,  page  95),  “ is  far  more  universal  than  that  in  a good 
God.”  There  are  many  savage  tribes  which  only  honor 
evil  spirits,  and  sacrifice  to  them  in  order  to  win  their 
favor,  while  they  are  indifferent  to  the  good  spirits. f Be- 
lief in  devils  also  forms  an  essential  part  of  the  Christian 
religion,  and  very  properly  too,  for  without  him  the  pres- 

* See  the  Revue  Philos.  1879,  No.  3,  page  316  et  seq. 

fThe  Negroes  of  Gaboon  (South  Africa)  honor  the  evil  spirit  ATbuiri,  who  is, 
in  their  opinion,  the  ruler  of  this  world  ; they  seek  to  turn  away  his  wrath,  while 
they  do  not  trouble  themselves  much  about  the  good  Ndschambi.  The  inhabit- 
ants of  Madagascar  worship  only  the  evil  spirit  Niang  ; they  are  indifferent  to 
their  good  God,  Zamhor.  The  Patagonians  pray  only  to  a devilish  being,  named 
Qualitschu,  and  the  same  is  true  of  many  other  savage  tribes.  The  theocracy  of 
the  Congo  Negroes  is  entirely  based  on  the  worship  of  the  snake,  which  is  the 
symbol  of  the  devil.  Thus  the  ancient  Egyptians  paid  divine  honors  to  the 
crocodile,  also  as  a symbol  of  the  devil. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


3” 


ence  of  evil  in  the  world  would  be  perfectly  inexplicable 
from  the  Christian  point  of  view  ; it  is  an  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  thorough  belief  in  God.* 

No  one  has  demonstrated  and  explained  the  purely 
human  origin  of  the  idea  of  God  better  than  Ludwig  Feuer- 
bach. He  calls  all  representations  of  God  and  of  the 
Divine  existence  Anthropomorphisms,  that  is  to  say,  the 
production  of  human  fancy  and  human  theories,  coined  on 
the  model  of  the  human  individuality,  and  he  seeks  the 
origin  of  this  anthropomorphism  in  the  feeling  of  depen- 
dence and  slavishness,  which  belongs  to  human  nature.  “ A 
God  existing  independent  of  and  above  man,”  says  Feuer- 
bach, ‘ ‘ is  nothing  more  than  the  external  and  supernatural 
Ego,  freed  from  its  limitations,  and  considered  objectively 
by  the  subjective  human  mind.”  ‘ ‘ God  is  the  self-conscious- 
ness of  man.  Man  created  God  in  his  own  image.”  The 
history  of  every  nation  is  an  unbroken  chain  of  evidence 
for  this  contention,  and  how  could  it  be  otherwise  ? With- 
out knowledge  or  conception  of  the  Absolute,  without  a 
direct  revelation  — the  existence  of  which  is  alleged,  but 
not  proved,  by  all  religious  sects  — all  representations  of 
God,  of  whatever  religion,  could  but  be  human  ; and  since 
man  finds  in  animated  nature  no  higher  intellectual  being 
than  himself,  his  ideas  of  a Supreme  Being  could  only  be  ab- 
stracted from  his  own  Ipse  ; they  must  be  a self -idealization. 
Therefore  do  we  find  reflected  in  the  religious  ideas  of every 
nation,  most  faithfully  and  characteristically,  the  conditions, 
wishes,  hopes,  nay  even  the  intellectual  development  and 
special  intellectual  tendency  that  obtained  among  that 
nation  at  the  time  ; and  we  are  wont  to  judge  of  the  intel- 
lectual individuality  and  degree  of  culture  of  a nation  by 
its  religion.  Take,  for  example  the  poetical  heaven  of  the 
Greeks , peopled  with  ideal  artistic  forms,  in  which  the 
Gods,  flourishing  in  eternal  youth  and  beauty,  enjoyed, 
laughed,  fought,  and  intrigued  like  men,  and  found  the 

*For  further  information  on  this,  and  on  the  idea  of  !God  generally,  see  the 
author’s  pamphlet,  Der  Gottesbegriff und  dessert  Bedeutung  in  der  Gegenwart. 


312 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


peculiar  charm  of  their  existence  in  a personal  interference 
in  human  affairs  — that  heaven  into  which  Schiller  breathed 
life  in  his  exquisite  poem  on  the  Gods  of  Greece.  Or  take 
the  wrathful,  gloomy  Jahu  or  Jehovah  of  the  Jews,  who 
punishes  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation  ; or  the  Chris- 
tian heaven,  in  which  God  shares  his  infinite  power  with 
his  son,  and  ranges  the  celestial  orders  of  the  blessed  quite 
in  a human  fashion  ; or  the  heaven  of  the  Catholics,  in 
which  the  Virgin  Mary,  in  the  bosom  of  the  Saviour,  uses 
her  soft  womanly  power  of  persuasion  in  favor  of  the  sin- 
ners ; or  the  heaven  of  the  Orientals,  in  which  crowds  of 
blooming  houris,  splashing  cascades,  eternal  coolness  and 
eternal  sensual  enjoyment  are  promised  ; or  the  heaven  of 
the  Greenlanders,  in  which  their  greatest  wish  is  expressed 
in  the  rich  superabundance  of  blubber,  fish  and  seals  ; or  the 
heaven  of  the  sporting  Indians,  in  which  an  eternal  suc- 
cessful hunt  rewards  the  blessed  ; or  that  of  the  New 
Caledonians,  who  hope  to  fill  their  future  life  with  the 
eating  of  ripe  bananas  and  with  similar  pleasures  ; or  the 
heaven  of  the  Teutons,  who  dreamed  of  drinking  mead  in 
Walhalla  out  of  the  skulls  of  their  defeated  foes  ; and  so  on. 

Nay,  more  than  this.  Each  individual  person  really  pic- 
tures his  own  God  according  to  the  standard  of  his  own 
special  and  personal  idiosyncrasy.  “Every  one,’’  says 
the  priest  Meslier  in  his  famous  “Testament,’’*  in  which  he 
so  ruthlessly  tears  the  mask  off  the  faces  of  the  bigots  and 
believers  in  God,  “makes  his  own  God  in  his  own  way. 
Your  cheerful  man  cannot  believe  that  God  could  ever  be 
severe  and  morose  ; the  stern,  irascible  individual  requires 
a God  of  terror,  and  looks  on  all  those  as  heretics  who  be- 
lieve in  a gentle  and  indulgent  one.” 

*This  remarkable  work  of  the  honest  curate  first  appeared  in  Holland  in  1762, 
and  was  afterwards  republished  in  Paris  under  the  following  imprint : Guillaumin, 
Libraire,  Rue  Neuve  des  Petits  Champs,  No.  61.  Its  full  title  is,  Le  Son  Sens  du 
cure  y.  Meslier , suivi  de  son  Testament.  In  1878  it  was  translated  from  the 
French  edition  of  1830  into  both  the  English  and  German  languages  by  Miss 
Anna  Knoop,  who  published  it  in  New  York — the  English  version  under  the  title 
of  Superstition  in  All  Ages,  and  the  German  edition  under  that  of  Glaube  und 
Vernunft. — Pub, 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


3*3 

Feuerbach  also  clearly  shows  the  purely  human  char- 
acter of  the  idea  of  God  as  seen  in  the  fashion  of  religious 
worship  and  the  outward  form  of  reverence  to  God.  The 
Greek  offered  meat  and  wine  to  his  Gods  ; the  Negro  spits 
chewed  food  into  his  idol’s  face  as  an  offering  ; the  Ostiac 
smears  his  Gods  with  blood  and  fat,  and  stops  up  their 
nostrils  with  snuff ; the  Christian,  the  Mahometan,  the  Jew, 
and  the  Indian  think  they  can  propitiate  their  God  by  per- 
sonal entreaties  and  by  prayers,  and  that  they  can  even 
influence  his  actions.  Everywhere  human  weakness, 
human  sorrows,  human  desire  for  happiness  ! All  nations 
and  religions  share  in  the  habit  of  placing  remarkable  men 
among  the  Gods  or  the  Saints  — a striking  proof  of  the 
human  substratum  of  the  idea  of  God  ! How  ingenious 
and  true  is  Feuerbach’s  remark,  that  the  cultured  man  is  a 
very  much  more  refined  being  than  the  God  of  the  savage, 
that  God  whose  intellectual  and  physical  nature  must 
naturally  be  exactly  proportionate  to  the  stage  of  civiliza- 
tion of  his  worshipers.  This  necessary  connection  between 
the  human  and  the  divine,  and  the  dependence  of  the  lat- 
ter on  the  former,  must  have  occurred  with  overwhelming 
clearness  to  Luther,  when  he  said  : “If  God  sat  alone  in 
heaven  like  a log,  he  would  not  be  God.”  The  Greek 
philosopher  Xenophanes  of  Kolophon  (572  B.  C.)  argued 
against  the  superstition  of  his  countrymen  as  follows  : “It 
appears  to  mortals  that  the  Gods  are  like  them  in  form,  ap- 
parel and  language.  The  negroes  serve  black  Gods  with 
flat  noses  ; the  Thracians,  Gods  with  blue  eyes  and  red 
hair.  If  the  oxen  and  lions  had  hands  to  fashion  images, 
they  would  give  the  Gods  a bovine  or  leonine  shape.’’ 

The  influence  of  Nature  and  of  the  surroundings  may 
also  be  easily  recognized  in  the  ideas  that  various  nations 
form  of  the  Deity.  The  exuberant  fancy  of  the  Hindus, 
who  live  in  a land  full  of  tropical  wonders  and  terrors,  and 
who  suffer  from  oriental  tyranny,  represents  their  God 
Siva  as  a terrible  three-eyed  monster,  wrapped  in  snakes, 
clothed  in  a tiger-skin,  holding  in  his  hand  a human  skull, 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


3M 

wearing  a necklace  of  human  bones,  and  raging  like  mad. 
His  equally  terrible  wife  Doorga,  or  Kali,  has  a dark-blue 
skin  ; but  the  palms  of  her  hands  are  red,  to  denote  her  in- 
satiable blood-thirstiness.  She  has  four  arms,  one  of  which 
carries  the  skull  of  a giant ; her  tongue  projects  far  from 
her  mouth  ; round  her  body  and  neck  are  suspended  the 
heads  and  hands  of  her  human  victims. 

If  constrained  human  reason  has  not  been  able  to  divest 
the  idea  of  God  of  its  anthropomorphic  character,  or  to  at- 
tain a pure  abstract  idea  of  the  Absolute,  the  reason  of 
philosophers  has  been,  if  anything,  even  less  successful  in 
this  respect.  If  anyone  would  take  the  trouble  to  collect 
all  the  philosophic  definitions  that  have  been  offered  of 
God,  the  Absolute,  the  Spirit  of  the  Universe,  the  Uni- 
versal Spirit,  the  pure  essence,  or  the  so-called  soul  of  the 
world,  he  would  get  at  an  awful  jumble  in  which,  from  the 
beginning  of  historical  times  down  to  this  day,  nothing 
new  and  nothing  better  has  been  brought  to  light,  despite  the 
alleged  progress  of  philosophic  science.  No  doubt  there 
would  be  no  lack  of  fine  words  and  resonant  phrases,  but 
these  cannot  make  up  for  the  want  of  internal  truth.  “ Have 
we,”  asked  Czolbe,  “got  one  step  more  ahead  in  the 
still  accepted  ideas  of  things  supersensual  than  we  were 
thousands  of  years  ago  ? What  else  do  we  possess  of  it 
now  but  mere  words  and  names  devoid  of  meaning?  ” ‘‘It 
follows,”  says  Virchow,  “that  man  can  conceive  nothing 
outside  himself,  and  that  everything  lying  beyond  him  is 
transcendental,  as  far  as  he  is  concerned.” 

There  are  philosophers  who  imagine  that  they  can  get 
out  of  all  difficulties  by  unifying  the  notions  of  ‘‘God” 
and  “ Universe,”  and  who  hold  that  God  is  neither  without 
nor  above  the  world,  but  is  himself  within  it,  and  he  has, 
as  it  were,  changed  himself  into  the  universe  and  has 
thereby  imparted  to  it  all  the  perfections  of  his  own  essence. 
Thus,  the  philosophical  naturalist  Fechner  says  in  his  Zend- 
Avesta  : “ God,  the  aggregation  of  being  and  action,  has 
no  universe  external  to  himself  and  no  existence  external 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 


315 


and  opposite  to  himself;  he  is  the  One  and  the  All  ; all 
spirits  move  within  his  spirit,  and  all  bodies  within  his 
body  ; he  rotates  wholly  within  himself,  and  is  influenced 
by  nothing  from  without ; nay  he  is  influenced  wholly  by 
himself,  and  in  himself,  since  he  embraces  the  basis  of  the 
influence  of  all  existing  within  himself.” 

That  sounds  very  beautiful,  but  nevertheless,  if  we  look 
at  it  more  closely,  we  find  that  it  is  stupendous  non- 
sense. If  all  spirits  move  within  the  spirit,  and  all  bodies 
within  the  body  of  God,  if  there  be  no  external  universe 
otitside  himself,  how  can  he  still  be  God  ? Would  he  not 
in  that  case  rather  represent  the  substance  of  all  corporeal 
and  spiritual  existence,  or  the  sum  total  of  the  universe, 
which  has  been  personified  by  the  definers,  whereas  the 
universe  in  its  endless  extent  and  multifariousness  is  the 
negation  of  every  personification  ? Well  may  Schopen- 
hauer remark,  as  against  the  Pantheistic  theory  : ‘‘A  God 
who  has  allowed  himself  to  be  changed  into  such  a bad  or 
imperfect  world,  must  verily  have  been  plagued  by  the 
devil  ! ” If  God  is  in  us  all  and  is  the  soul  of  the  world, 
then  he  must  directly  partake  of  all  our  wickedness  and 
imperfections.  He  suffers  in  us  toothache  and  bodily 
pain  ; he  denies  or  insults  himself  in  the  mouth  of  one, 
while  he  reveres  and  worships  himself  in  the  mouth  of 
another.  In  one  man  he  does  good,  while  in  another  he 
works  evil  and  contends  against  his  own  laws.  He  worries 
himself  with  insoluble  riddles,  he  dies  in  each  individual  in 
doubt  and  pain,  he  rewards  or  punishes  himself  in  a future 
life,  and  so  on. 

But  enough  of  all  this  nonsense  ! The  Pantheistic  or 
universal  God  is  not  one  hair’s  breadth  better  than  the  per- 
sonal God  of  the  Theist.  Neither  is  he  a modern  discovery. 
But  our  modern  philosophers  love  to  season  old  dishes 
with  new  sauces,  and  serve  them  up  as  the  latest  chefs 
d' oeuvre  of  the  philosophic  cuisine. 


Personal  Continuance. 


From  the  moment  of  death  onwards,  both  the  soul  and  body  feel  as  little  as  they 
did  before  birth— Pliny. 

— Thy  best  of  rest  is  sleep, 

And  that  thou  oft  provok’st,  yet  grossly  fear’st 
Thy  death,  which  is  no  more. — Shakspeare. 

Memento  quod  pulvis  es  et  in  pulverem  reverteri9. 

(Remember  that  thou  art  dust,  and  shalt  return  to  dust.) 

Man’s  body  is  dust, 

But  his  soul  lives  in  his  works. — R.  Voss. 

IN  an  earlier  chapter  we  showed  by  what  we  consider  as 
irrefutable  facts  that  what  is  called  soul  or  spirit,  stands 
in  an  indissoluble  relation  to  its  corporeal  substratum, 
especially  to  the  brain  ; we  have  seen  that  psychical  phe- 
nomena arise,  grow,  decrease  and  become  diseased  with  this 
substratum.  Even  though  we  may  not  be  in  a position  to 
distinctly  show  the  internal  connection  of  this  state  of 
things,  or  to  say  how  and  in  what  way  psychical  action  is 
rendered  possible  by  material  combinations  and  activities, 
we  yet  find  that  these  facts  force  upon  us  the  conclusion 
that  the  connection  is  such  as  not  to  admit  of  the  thought 
of  a permanent  separation.  Just  as  no  thought  is  possible 
without  a brain  or  a corporeal  equivalent  thereof,  so  a nor- 
mally constructed  and  nourished  brain  cannot  exist  with- 
out thinking  ; and  if  we  want  to  imagine  a thinking  universal 
spirit,  it  can  only  be  on  the  basis  of  a universal  brain 
nourished  with  oxygenated  blood.  In  this  microcosmic 
phenomenon  we  behold  only  the  repetition  of  the  principal 
axiom  of  our  philosophic  naturalism,  that  force  without 

(316) 


personal  continuance. 


317 

matter  is  no  more  imaginable  or  possible  than  matter  with- 
out force.  A soul  without  a body,  a spirit  without 
physique,  and  a thought  without  substance,  can  no  more 
be  realized  or  exist  than  electricity,  magnetism,  undula- 
tions of  heat,  gravity,  etc.,  can  exist  without  those  bodies 
or  materials  by  the  activity  of  which  the  phenomena  desig- 
nated by  those  names  are  produced. 

In  consonance  with  this,  we  have  shown  in  a preceding 
chapter,  that  the  animal  and  the  human  soul  does  not  enter 
the  world  with  innate  ideas  or  thoughts,  that  it  has  no  in- 
dependent existence  and  is  no  ens  per  se,  but  that  its 
development  proceeds  on  parallel  lines  with  the  develop- 
ment and  formation  of  the  organs  subserving  it,  and  with 
the  number,  kind,  and  variety  of  the  impressions  received 
and  the  experiences  undergone. 

In  presence  of  such  an  array  of  facts  we  have  no  hesita- 
tion in  declaring  ourselves  fully  as  much  opposed  to  all 
views  which  are  connected  with  belief  in  individual  immor- 
tality or  with  personal  continuance  after  death.  By  the 
destruction  and  breaking-up  of  its  material  substratum,  and 
the  dissolution  of  the  combination  by  which  alone  it  at- 
tained conscious  existence  and  became  a person,  a period 
is  also  put  to  the  existence  of  the  intellectual  being  which 
we  have  seen  grow  up  only  upon  this  double  ground  and 
in  closest  dependence  thereon.  All  knowledge  which  has 
become  a part  of  this  being  is  related  to  things  terrestrial ; 
it  has  recognized  and  become  conscious  of  itself  only  in, 
with,  and  through  these  things  ; it  has  become  a person 
only  by  its  separation  from  other  earthly  limited  individu- 
alities ; how  can  it  be  possible  or  imaginable  that  this  being 
could  exist  self-consciously  and  as  the  same  person,  torn 
away  from  all  these  necessary  conditions,  which  are  the 
very  breath  of  life  for  it  ? The  idea  of  personal  immor- 
tality is  not  supported  by  reflection,  but  by  obstinate  willful- 
ness— not  by  science,  but  by  faith  only.  “ Physiology,” 
says  Carl  Vogt,  “ declares  itself  decidedly  and  categori- 
cally against  individual  immortality,  as  against  all  theories 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


318 

in  general  which  include  the  special  existence  of  a soul. 
The  soul  does  not  enter  into  the  foetus,  as  the  evil  spirit 
does  into  the  possessed,  but  it  is  produced  by  the  develop- 
ment of  the  brain,  just  the  same  as  muscular  activity  is 
produced  by  the  development  of  the  muscles,  or  secretion 
is  produced  by  a development  of  the  glands.  The 
psychical  activities  begin  to  develop  after  birth  ; but  it  is 
also  after  birth  that  the  brain  gradually  attains  the  material 
structure  peculiar  to  it  In  the  course  of  life  the  psychical 
activities  undergo  decided  changes,  and  cease  altogether 
with  the  death  of  the  organ  ! ’ ’ 

Indeed,  the  simplest  experience  and  observation  of  every- 
day life  teaches  us  that  psychical  activity  ceases  with  the 
destruction  of  its  material  substratum,  or  — that  man  dies. 
‘ ‘ The  times  have  been,  ’ ’ says  Macbeth,  ‘ ‘ that  when  the 
brains  were  out,  the  man  would  die.”  There  is  no  real 
proof,  and  none  has  ever  been  found,  which  should  induce 
us  to  believe  that  the  soul  of  a dead  person  lives  on  in  one 
shape  or  in  another.  “That  the  soul  of  a dead  person,” 
says  Burmeister,  “ ceases  to  exist  at  the  moment  of  death, 
cannot  be  contradicted  by  sensible  people.  Spirits  and 
spirit-manifestations  have  only  been  seen  by  sick  or  super- 
stitious persons.” 

Having  thus  broadly  laid  down  our  view,  we  cannot  re- 
frain from  going  into  some  of  the  chief  arguments  which 
have  been  urged  in  favor  of  individual  immortality,  from 
the  standpoint  of  a natural  and  moral  study,  based  on  sober 
and  experimental  science. 

First  of  all,  natural  philosophers  have  attempted  to  de- 
duce the  immortality  of  the  soul  from  the  imperishable 
character  of  Nature  and  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and 
force.  Inasmuch,  it  is  urged,  as  there  exists  no  absolute 
annihilation  anywhere,  it  cannot  be  imagined  or  conceived 
that  the  human  spirit,  once  in  existence,  can  be  brought  to 
nought  again  ; such  an  idea  is  contrary  to  reason  and  to 
the  natural  law.  In  opposition  to  this  it  should  be  re- 
marked that  a transitory  manifestation  of  the  “ matter-and- 


PERSONAL  CONTINUANCE. 


3*9 


force  ’ ’ principle  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  princi- 
ple itself.  No  doubt,  in  the  eternal  cycle  of  matters  and 
forces,  nothing  is  mortal  ; but  this  only  holds  good  col- 
lectively, and  for  the  whole,  while  the  individual  is  subject 
to  unceasing  changes  of  genesis  and  decay.  While  force 
and  matter  as  such  manifest  their  indestructibility  in  an  in- 
controvertible manner,  which  rests  upon  experiments,  the 
same  cannot  be  said  of  the  soul,  which  is  only  the  effect  or 
product  of  a definite  combination  of  materials  and  forces 
subject  to  disassociation.  With  the  breaking-up  of  this 
combination,  its  working  must  necessarily  come  to  an  end. 
If  we  break  a watch  to  pieces,  it  will  no  longer  tell  the 
time  of  the  day  ; if  we  kill  the  nightingale,  its  song  sub- 
sides. We  have  nothing  left  before  us  but  a heap  of 
apparently  dead  materials,  which  must  enter  or  be  brought 
into  new  compounds  or  combinations,  in  order  to  bring 
about  results  similar  to  those  previously  obtained. 

In  perfect  accord  with  this  is  the  fact  that  the  personal 
soul,  despite  its  alleged  indestructibility,  never  existed  for 
a whole  eternity,  that  is  to  say  during  the  time  when  the 
body  to  which  it  belongs,  was  not  yet  formed.  But  that 
which  once  did  not  exist,  can  perish  and  be  destroyed 
again.  Nay,  it  is  in  the  very  essence  of  everything  that  is 
brought  into  being,  that  it  should  also  come  to  an  end 
again. 

There  is  actually  a condition  which  enables  us  to  pro- 
duce a perfectly  direct  and  experimental  proof  of  the 
destructibility  of  the  individual  soul  ; it  is  the  well- 
known  condition  of  sleep.  Owing  to  a retardation  in 
the  circulation  of  the  blood  and  a diminution  in  the  supply 
of  blood  to  the  brain,  the  function  or  activity  of  the  organ 
of  thought,  which  required  that  a very  brisk  reciprocal 
action  should  go  on  between  the  oxygen  of  the  blood  and 
the  brain-matter,  is  disturbed  or  suspended  in  such  a way 
that  psychical  or  conscious  phenomena  cease  for  a time 
— just  as  the  circulation  ceases  when  the  heart  ceases  to 
beat,  or  the  oxidation  of  the  blood  is  checked,  if  the  lungs 


320 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


cease  to  act.  The  body  alone  lives  on,  in  a condition  simi- 
lar to  that  of  the  animals  from  which  Flourens  had  cut 
away  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  On  waking,  that  is  to 
say,  upon  the  return  of  the  normal  circulation  and  of  oxi- 
dation to  the  brain,  the  soul,  which  had  been,  as  it  were, 
bereaved  of  existence,  continues  its  work  at  exactly  the 
same  point  at  which  it  had  come  to  an  end  when  sleep  set 
in  ; the  long  interval  had  no  existence  for  it  ; the  soul  was 
practically  in  a condition  of  spiritual  death. 

This  peculiar  analogy  is  so  plain  and  obvious  that  sleep  and 
death  have  always  been  compared  with  each  other  and  been 
styled  brothers.  “ Death  is  like  sleep,”  says  Byron,  “ and 
sleep  closes  our  eyelids.”  In  the  course  of  the  first  French 
revolution,  the  celebrated  Chaumette*  had  statues  of  Sleep 
erected  in  the  cemeteries  and  the  following  inscription  put 
over  the  gates  : “ Death  is  an  eternal  sleep.”  Andrea, 
the  Author  of  an  old  Descriptio  republic  ce  christiano- 
politance , from  the  year  1619,  says:  ‘‘This  Republic 

knows  nothing  of  death,  and  yet  indeed  is  it  present  with 
them  ; but  they  call  it  sleep.” 

Now  in  opposition  to  this  argument  it  has  been  con- 
tended that  the  phenomena  of  dreams  afford  a complete 
proof  of  the  psychical  powers  being  active  in  sleep,  though 
in  a subordinate  degree  only.  This  argument  is  based  on 
an  error  of  fact,  for  the  dreaming  condition  is  not  that  of 
real  sleep,  but  is  a transition  state  between  sleeping  and 
waking,  a sort  of  half-sleep.  Persons  in  a perfect  state  of 
health  do  not  even  experience  this  transition  ; it  is  well 
known  that  they  do  not  dream  at  all.  Dreaming  is  con- 

* Chaumette,  public  prosecutor  of  the  commune  of  Paris  during  the  Revolution 
of  1792,  and  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Hebertists,  who  had  assumed  the  name  of 
the  Greek  philosopher  Anaxagoras,  preached  morality,  industry,  the  patriotic 
virtues  and  reason  ; he  suppressed  houses  of  ill  fame,  turned  all  beggars  and 
prostitutes  out,  opened  an  office  for  the  poor  to  find  employment,  and  closed  the 
female  club,  to  which  women  resorted  to  mix  in  politics  to  the  detriment  of  their 
domestic  duties.  He  issued  a communal  order  that  no  religious  practices  should 
be  carried  on  outside  the  churches  ; he  prohibited  the  trade  in  relics  and  put  a 
stop  to  public  religious  funerals  ; he  planted  the  cemeteries  with  beautiful  and 
fragrant  flowers.  He  and  his  followers  were  overthrown  by  the  fanatical  doc- 
trinaire and  theist,  Robespierre,  and  were  guillotined  on  April  12th,  1794. 


PERSONAL  CONTINUANCE. 


321 


sidered  at  this  day  by  medical  authorities  as  a pathologi- 
cal or  mor'nid  condition.*  A deep  or  thoroughly  healthy 
sleep  knows  ef  no  dream,  and  a man  suddenly  aroused  from 
such  sleep  is,  lor  a brief  period,  so  entirely  destitute  of  his 
psychical  powers  that  whilst  in  this  condition  of  being  half 
awake  and  half  asleep,  he  is  considered  as  irresponsible  in 
law.  A.  Maury,  having  made  some  interesting  experiments 
on  hinself,  was  brought  to  the  conclusion,  that  dreaming 
results  in  almost  all  instances  from  some  disturbance  or 
change  in  some  part  of  our  organism,  such  disturbance  re- 
acting on  the  brain.  According  to  him,  a man,  while 
dreaming,  is  like  an  insane  person. 

Certain  morbid  conditions  are  even  more  instructive 
than  sleep  in  illustrating  this  temporary  destructibility  of 
our  intellectual  psychical  existence.  There  are  disturb- 
ances arising  in  the  activity  of  the  brain  from  wounds, 
shocks,  flashes  of  lightning,  catalepsy,  etc.,  which  result  in 
an  entire  loss  of  consciousness,  or  a complete  cessation  of 
all  psychical  phenomena.  Such  a condition  may  last  for 
weeks  and  months.  If  the  patient  recovers,  it  is  found  that 
he  has  not  the  slightest  remembrance  of  the  condition 
through  which  he  has  passed,  and  that  he  continues  his 
psychical  life  exactly  at  the  point  in  which  consciousness 
left  him  ; he  has,  as  it  were,  been  dead  and  come  to  life 
again.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  actual  death  ensues  instead 
of  recovery,  the  moment  of  this  catastrophe  is  a matter  of 
perfect  indifference  to  the  injured  person  ; for  as  a person 
and  as  a psychically  animated  being,  he  had  died  at  the 
moment  when  the  disease  put  an  end  to  the  activity  of  his 
brain.  It  must  be  difficult,  nay,  quite  impossible,  for  those 
who  believe  in  the  existence  of  an  independent  immortal 
soul,  to  explain  the  connection  of  such  phenomena,  and  to 
give  any  reasonable  theory  as  to  how  and  where  the  soul, 
or  the  conscious  Ego  or  Self  which  the  philosophers  talk 
so  much  about,  has  lived  or  continued  its  existence  during 
such  periods.  No  such  theory  can  be  produced,  unless, 

* See  Binz,  Ueber  den  Traum.  Bonn,  1878. 


322 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


in  consonance  with  the  superstitious  ideas  of  firmer  cen- 
turies, we  assume  that  the  soul  leaves  at  times  the  body, 
somewhat  in  the  form  of  a small  animal,  to  travel  about  in 
unknown  regions,  in  heaven,  in  hell,  and  so  on,  and  event- 
ually to  return  to  its  previous  abode. 

We  also  feel  compelled  to  declare  wa?  upon  those  who, 
in  contradistinction  to  the  personal  soul,  hold  to  the  ex- 
istence of  a universal  spiritual  matter,  or  fundamental 
soul,  from  which  it  is  contended  that  the  individual  souls 
derive  their  origin,  and  into  which  they  return  subsequent 
to  the  destruction  of  the  bodies  to  which  they  belonged. 
Such  theories  are  as  hypothetical  as  they  are  devoid  of 
foundation.  The  expression  “spiritual  (z.  e.  immaterial) 
matter  ” is  in  itself  a contradiction,  like  the  ancient  notions 
of  imponderables,  or  matters  that  could  not  be  weighed  ; 
it  is  a logical  and  empirical  monstrosity.  Neither  would 
such  an  assumption  improve  the  case  of  the  advocates  of 
personal  immortality  very  much.  For  the  return  into  the 
universal  primal  soul,  with  a surrender  of  individuality  and 
personal  continuance  and  of  the  memory  of  a former  life, 
means  very  little  less  than  annihilation  ; and  it  would  be 
just  the  same  for  the  individual  whether  his  so-called 
psychical  materials  found  further  employment  and  use  in 
the  building-up  of  other  souls,  or  not 

Attempts  have  of  late  years  been  made  to  utilize  the 
“ spiritual  matter”  or  “ soul-substance,”  to  which  we  re- 
ferred in  the  chapter  on  innate  ideas,  as  a basis  for  in- 
dividual or  personal  immortality.  Prof.  R.  Wagner  of 
Gottingen  first  spoke  of  an  immaterial  and  individual  soul- 
substance,  temporarily  united  with  the  body,  which  upon 
the  dissolution  of  the  latter  might  travel  to  remote  realms 
of  space  perhaps  in  the  same  way  and  with  equal  swiftness 
as  light,  and  thence  might  occasionally  revisit  the  earth. 
Such  a theory  is  so  utterly  untenable,  and  the  analogy  be- 
tween the  ether  of  light  and  the  pretended  soul-substance 
is  so  hopelessly  preposterous,  as  to  make  it  an  easy  thing  for 
Prof.  Wagner’s  antagonist,  Carl  Vogt,  to  consign  the 


PERSONAL  CONTINUANCE. 


323 


whole  of  this  discovery,  made  in  the  interest  of  the  cause 
of  personal  continuance,  to  the  realm  of  mere  speculative 
fancies.  (See  his  work  : Kohlerglaube  und  Wissenschaft, 

1855-) 

No  greater  value  can  be  assigned  to  some  further  in- 
ventions in  the  province  of  natural  philosophy  made  in 
support  of  personal  immortality,  than  to  the  theory  of  soul- 
substance.  Thus,  Herr  Drossbach,  among  others,  thinks 
he  has  discovered  that  each  body  contains  an  infinite 
number  of  monads,  capable  of  self-consciousness,  which 
gradually  attain  by  development  to  consciousness,  or,  when 
death  ensues,  fall  to  pieces  again.  These  monads  combine 
again  at  some  very  remote  period,  or  in  other  worlds,  and 
form  a new  man  with  a reminiscence  of  his  former  life  ! 
Really,  these  monads  are  too  intangible  for  any  one  to 
have  anything  further  to  say  about  them. 

While  the  destructibility  of  the  human  soul  after  death 
has  been  impugned  from  the  standpoint  of  natural  philoso- 
phy, a similar  attempt  has  been  made  with  the  same  ob- 
ject from  a moral  point  of  view  — and  it  seems  to  us,  with 
exactly  the  same  success.  First,  it  has  been  contended 
that  the  idea  of  everlasting  annihilation  is  so  repugnant  to 
all  human  sensation  and  so  revoltant  against  human  feeling, 
that  on  this  ground  alone,  it  must  necessarily  be  fallacious. 
Now  quite  apart  from  the  fact  that  such  an  appeal  to 
feeling  cannot  supply  the  want  of  scientific  reasons,  it  must 
be  urged  that  the  thought  of  an  everlasting  life,  or  the  im- 
possibility of  dying,  is  far  more  terrible  and  much  more 
revolting  to  human  feeling  than  that  of  everlasting  anni- 
hilation. Even  in  the  province  of  legends,  this  horror  has 
been  expressed  in  the  ingenious  story  of  the  undying 
Ahasuerus  — the  Wandering  Jew.  To  ask  for  eternal  life 
would,  as  Galilei  remarked,  be  tantamount  to  clamoring 
for  petrifaction. 

On  the  contrary,  the  idea  of  the  annihilation  and  cessa- 
tion of  individual  life  has  nothing  terrible  in  it  for  the  mind 
of  a man  with  a philosophic  thought  about  him.  Not  to 


/ 


324  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

exist,  as  the  profound  religion  of  Buddha  has  so  clearly- 
recognized,  amounts  to  perfect  rest,  painlessness,  freedom 
from  all  impressions  that  rack  and  torment  the  corporeal 
or  mental  being,  and  it  is  therefore  not  to  be  apprehended, 
but  rather  to  be  ardently  desired  after  the  completion  of 
a normal  life,  and  upon  the  appearance  of  the  unavoidable 
infirmities  of  old  age.  There  can  be  nopain  in  annihilation, 
any  more  than  in  the  repose  of  sleep  ; the  sense  of  death  is 
most  in  apprehension  (Shakspeare).  ‘ ‘ The  fear  of  death 
naturally  felt  by  all  men,”  says  Kant,  “ even  by  the  most 
unfortunate  and  also  the  wisest,  is  not  a dread  of  dying, 
but  as  Montaigne  rightly  remarks,  of  a horror  of  the 
thought  of  being  dead ; the  subject  of  death  imagines  he 
will  preserve  this  thought  after  death,  because  he  thinks  of 
the  corpse  which  is  no  longer  himself ; he  imagines  that 
his  own  self  will  come  to  lie  in  some  dark  tomb  or  else- 
where.” With  equal  cogency  Fichte  says:  ‘‘It  is  quite 
clear  that  he  who  does  not  exist  can  feel  no  sort  of  pain. 
Upon  this  ground,  annihilation,  if  it  occurs,  is  no  evil  at 
all.”  The  clear-headed  Roman  Catholic  priest,  Jean  Mes- 
lier,  writes  to  the  same  effect  ; — ‘ ‘ Is  the  fear  of  not  lasting 
forever,  more  sad  than  that  of  not  having  existed  from 
time  immemorial  ? The  fear  of  losing  consciousness  is  in 
reality  but  a sentimental  grievance  to  which  alone  is  due 
the  dogma  of  a future  life.”  And  Socrates  says  in  Plato 
(. Apologia  Socratis)  that  death,  even  if  it  deprives  us  for- 
ever of  consciousness,  is  a wondrous  gain,  just  as  a deep 
dreamless  sleep  is  preferable  any  day  to  the  happiest  life. 
It  would  be  easy  to  glean  from  the  Greek  tragedians  a 
whole  anthology  of  similar  expressions  and  sayings. 

Has  anybody  ever  grieved  because  he  was  not  in  exist- 
ence when  the  Greeks  besieged  Troy?  Neither  need  we 
grieve  because  we  shall  not  be  in  existence  when  events  of 
the  future  stir  up  the  world  and  mankind.  Rather  should 
those  who  require  comfort,  rejoice  in  the  thought  that 
these  things  of  the  future  are  the  fruit  of  the  present,  and 
that  they  cannot  come  about  without  his  co-operation.  He 


PERSONAL  CONTINUANCE. 


325 


who  wishes  for  immortality  must  not  desire  it  for  himself  or 
his  own  poor  individuality,  which  is  but  a single  ripple  in 
the  vast  ocean  of  existence,  but  for  the  share  which  he, 
as  an  individual,  has  contributed  to  the  existence  of  the 
ensemble.  Be  this  contribution  large  or  small,  it  cannot 
perish  in  the  life  of  the  whole,  but  works  on  to  all  eternity, 
just  as  in  the  eternal  cycle  of  forces  not  even  the  smallest 
movement  can  be  lost,  without  breaking  the  irrefragable 
law  of  cause  and  effect.  How  truly  does  Schiller  say  : 

“ Vor  dem  T ode  erschrickst  Du  ? Du  wtinschest  unsterblich 
zu  leben  ? 

“ Leb’  im  Ganzen  ! Wenn  Du  lange  dahin  bist,  es  bleibt ! ” 

(“Art  thou  afraid  of  death?  Wilt  thou  live  forever  ? 
Then  live  in  the  whole.  Whep  thou  shalt  have  long  been 
gone,  it  still  remains  ! ”) 

Ruckert  expresses  the  same  thought  in  the  words  : 

“ Vernichtung  weht  Dich  an,  so  lang  Du  Einzler  bist, 

“O,  filhl’  im  Ganzen  Dich,  das  unvernichtbar  ist ! ” 

(“  Annihilation  breathes  on  thee  while  thou  art  a solitary. 
Oh  feel  thyself  part  of  the  All,  which  is  indestructible  ! ”) 

The  scholastic  philosophers,  who  feel  the  untenability 
of  the  ground  on  which  they  stand  with  regard  to  this 
question  of  immortality,  but  who  are  determined  to  yoke 
together  philosophy  and  faith,  have  tried  to  extricate  them- 
selves from  the  difficulty  in  a very  extraordinary  and 
unphilosophic  manner.  “The  longings  of  our  nature,’’ 
says  M.  Carriere,  for  instance,  “ the  endeavors  of  knowl- 
edge to  solve  so  many  problems,  demand  immortality,  and 
the  many  sorrows  of  this  earth  would  form  a horrible  dis- 
cord in  the  harmony  of  the  universe,  if  these  problems  did 
not  find  their  solution  in  a superior  harmony,  by  the  fact 
of  those  longings  and  yearnings  producing  their  fruit  in 
the  purification  and  development  of  the  individual.  These 
and  other  considerations  make  immortality,  in  our  estima- 
tion, a subjective  certainty  and  a conviction  of  the  heart.” 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


326 

Every  one,  indeed,  may  have  ‘ ‘ convictions  of  the  heart.” 
But  such  convictions  should  not  presume  to  come  forward 
in  a philosophic  garb.  It  may  be  that  we  are  surrounded 
by  many  problems,  the  solving  of  which  would  give  great 
pleasure  to  thoughtful  minds.  But  we  come  no  nearer  to 
their  solution  by  ‘‘convictions  of  the  heart,”  or  by  the  mad 
mental  gymnastics  of  schoolmasters,  but  by  sober  re- 
flection, based  on  reason  and  experience  ; and  the  conclusion 
to  which  we  must  necessarily  be  led  by  such  reflection,  is 
the  finality  of  the  person  or  of  the  individual  as  a transitory 
phenomenon  in  the  general  life  of  Nature.  A real  un- 
veiling of  the  enigmatic  character  of  the  universe,  such  as 
Herr  Carriere  seems  to  ask  for,  that  is  to  say,  the  acquire- 
ment of  a perfect  knowledge  by  the  human  mind,  must,  on 
internal  grounds,  be  regarded  as  an  absolute  impossibility. 
Without  strife  there  can  be  no  life  ; absolute  truth  would 
be  death  to  him  who  should  grasp  it,  and  he  would  perish 
in  apathy  and  indolence.  Lessing  associated  with  this  idea 
such  a conception  of  weariness  that  it  caused  him ‘‘woe 
and  anguish.” 

If,  however,  it  be  suggested  that  we  should  be  content 
with  an  everlasting  and  ever  more  perfect  strife  in  another 
world,  nothing  would  be  gained  by  this  in  regard  to  the 
question  of  the  finality  or  endlessness  of  the  human  spirit  ; 
the  decision  would  only  be  carried  a little  further  back. 
The  second  life  would  be  an  enlarged  and  improved 
edition  of  the  first,  with  the  same  fundamental  defects,  the 
same  contradictions,  the  same  final  absence  of  results.  But 
like  candidates  for  government  offices,  who  prefer  an  ap- 
pointment at  some  indefinite  date  to  none  at  all,  thousands 
upon  thousands  cling  in  their  mental  agony  to  the  un- 
certain prospect  of  an  everlasting  or  temporary  continu- 
ance of  life. 

The  philosophers  who,  in  regard  to  this  question  of 
immortality,  do  not  hesitate  in  making  short  work  of  the 
philosophic  method  by  which,  at  other  times,  they  set  so 
much  store,  and  to  appeal  to  an  indefinite  super-sensa- 


PERSONAL  CONTINUANCE. 


327 


tionalism,  scarcely  deserve  to  be  answered.  The  famous 
philosopher  Fichte  lays  down  the  law  as  follows  : ‘ ‘ Eter- 
nal continuance  cannot  be  explained  on  mere  natural 
conditions,  nor  need  it  be,  since  it  is  far  above  Nature.  If, 
from  a sensational  and  empirical  standpoint,  we  cannot  see 
how  eternal  continuance  is  possible,  it  must  yet  be  possible, 
seeing  that  it  lies  in  that  which  is  above  all  nature.”  It 
stands  to  reason  that  decrees  of  this  kind  can  be  binding 
only  on  those  who  believe  and  will  believe,  and  who,  there- 
fore, do  not  heed  them  ; all  others  will  find  it  natural  to 
put  the  standard  of  human  intellectual  knowledge  to  a con- 
troversial question,  and  will  look  for  a solution  of  it  to 
experience,  reason  and  natural  science.  In  this  investi- 
gation they  will  find  that  Fichte  was  right  when  he  asked 
that  natural  and  sensational  intelligence  should  be  forsaken 
in  order  to  grasp  the  possibility  of  personal  immortality. 

We  should  like  to  point  out  quite  cursorily  and  in  a few 
words  the  difficulties  and  absurdities  which,  if  personal  im- 
mortality were  a truth,  must  result  from  the  continued  and 
simultaneous  existence  of  the  countless  troops  and  hosts  of 
souls,  that  had  belonged  to  the  living  men  or  rational  in- 
habitants of  other  worlds.  From  the  results  arrived  at  in 
earlier  chapters  (on  the  construction  of  the  heavens  and  the 
universality  of  natural  laws)  it  is  seen  to  be  impossible  and 
inconceivable  from  the  naturalistic  standpoint,  that  any 
place  can  exist  outside  the  earth  in  which  the  departed 
souls  could  gather  when  freed  from  the  ties  of  the  law  of 
gravitation.  Even  if  this  difficulty  about  dwelling  places 
did  not  exist,  there  would  still  be  the  excessive  disparity 
between  the  departed,  in  their  moral  and  intellectual  de- 
grees of  civilization,  that  must  necessarily  stand  in  the 
way  of  their  living  together  after  leaving  the  earth.  Life  in 
eternity,  according  to  the  tolerably  unanimous  opinions  of 
theologians  and  philosophers,  is  to  be  a continuation  of  or 
improvement  upon  the  life  in  this  world.  It  must  therefore 
seem  to  be  indispensable  that  each  individual  soul  should 
at  least  have  reached  on  earth  a certain  stage  of  formation 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


328 

as  a groundwork  for  its  further  development  to  proceed 
upon.  But  now  only  think  of  the  souls  of  children  dying 
in  infancy,  of  old  people  who  have  lapsed  into  second 
childhood,  of  insane  persons,  of  idiots,  of  badly  trained  in- 
dividuals, of  irresponsible  beings,  of  savage  nations,  or  of 
those  standing  on  the  lowest  rungs  of  the  ladder  of  our 
European  Society.  Are  the  defects  in  civilization  and  edu- 
cation to  be  continued  in  the  other  world  on  the  same  or 
on  a higher  scale?  “I  am  sick  and  tired  of  sitting  on 
school-forms,”  says  Danton  in  Georg  Biichner’s  famous 
drama,  Danton' s Tod.  This  shows  clearly  the  reason  why 
human  fancy  has  been  far  less  fertile  in  painting  the  hoped- 
for  joys  of  heaven  than  in  depicting  the  everlasting  tor- 
ments of  hell.  People  found  it  impossible  to  form  a tenable 
conception  of  the  pleasures  of  a condition  in  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  Christian  view,  they  would  have  nothing  to 
do  except  to  glorify  God  forever.  On  the  contrary,  the 
numerous  sufferings  and  terrors  of  earthly  existence  have 
yielded  materials  enough  and  to  spare  for  artists  to  picture 
the  reverse  of  the  medal. 

And,  lastly,  let  us  ask, — If  the  doctrine  of  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  be  true,  what  is  to  become  of  the  souls 
of  animals  ? Human  pride  has  only  considered  this  matter 
with  regard  to  mankind,  and  has  refused  to  see  that 
animals,  to  whom  the  possession  of  a soul  (though  it  be  but 
an  animal  soul)  can  no  more  be  denied  than  it  can  to  man, 
have  exactly  the  same  right  as  man  himself.  The  difference 
existing  between  human  and  animal  souls  is  not  a funda- 
mental one,  but  only  a question  of  degree  ; and  that  the 
roots  and  beginnings  of  the  highest  mental  and  psychical 
capabilities  of  mankind  find  their  counterpart  in  the  animal 
world,  will  be  shown  in  a subsequent  chapter  ; it  is  a dif- 
ference of  grade  or  development,  not  of  kind.  Burmeister 
has  therefore  a perfect  right  to  say  : — ‘‘If  the  human  soul 
be  immortal,  the  animal  soul  must  be  so  too.  Both  must 
have  similar  claims  to  immortality  by  virtue  of  the  simi- 
larity to  their  fundamental  qualities.”  If  this  inference  be 


PERSONAL  CONTINUANCE. 


329 


followed  out  down  to  the  lowest  animal  types  — to  which  a 
soul,  in  the  most  general  sense,  can  no  more  be  denied 
than  it  can  to  the  highest  — and  if  we  proceed  right  down 
to  the  monera  or  simplest  primal  organisms,  then  all  the 
moral  grounds  on  which  the  arguments  for  individual  im- 
mortality have  been  based,  tumble  to  pieces,  and  absurdi- 
ties result  which  must  destroy  the  whole  fabric  of  foolish 
hopes.* 

Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  the  soul  of  an  intelligent 
animal,  like  that  of  a dog,  ape  or  elephant,  stands  beyond 
all  doubt  much  higher  in  the  intellectual  scale  than  that  of 
a human  idiot,  cretin  or  maniac.  Would  it  not  be  an  unwar- 
rantable contradiction  to  admit  immortality  for  the  latter, 
and  not  for  the  former? 

Lastly,  it  has  been,  and  is  still  asserted,  that  the  idea  of 
immortality,  like  the  idea  of  God,  is  innate  in  the  inner- 
most intellectual  being  of  man,  and  is  therefore  undeniable 
on  all  rational  grounds.  For  the  same  reason,  it  is  further 
alleged,  there  is  no  religion  which  does  not  cling  to  per- 
sonal immortality  as  one  of  its  first  and  chief  axioms.  As 
to  innate  ideas,  we  have  already  spoken  of  them  at  suf- 
ficient length  ; and  as  regards  nations  or  religions  and 
religious  sects,  within  which  there  exists  no  such  thing  as 
an  idea  of  immortality,  there  are  no  end  to  them,  and  it 
would  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  only  a comparatively 
small  portion  of  mankind  are  found  adhering  to  that  idea. 
Although  the  Jews  may  be  regarded  as  harbingers  of 
Christianity,  their  chief  sects  recognized  no  personal  im- 
mortality. The  enlightened  sect  of  the  Sadducees  taught, 
as  against  their  opponents  the  Pharisees  or  “Jesuits”  of 
Judaism,  that  the  human  soul  does  not  outlive  the  body, 
but  is  dissolved  with  it  into  planetary  atoms  and  undergoes 

•The  missionary  Moffat  tells  an  interesting  anecdote,  which  shows  very  plainly 
the  view  taken  by  savage  peoples  unfettered  by  dogmas.  A member  of  the 
Bechuana  tribe  (in  the  interior  of  South  Africa)  came  to  him  one  day  and  asked, 
pointing  to  his  dog:  "What  difference  is  there  between  me  and  this  creature? 
You  say,  I am  immortal ; why  not  my  ox  and  my  dog?  They  die,  and  do  you 
notice  anything  of  their  souls  ? What  is  the  difference  between  man  and  animal  ? 
None,  save  that  man  is  the  greater  rascal  of  the  two."  (See  Ausland,  1856,  No  33. ( 


FORCE  AND  MATTER, 


330 

many  other  transmissions.  According  to  them,  there  is  no 
resurrection  of  the  dead  ; the  fate  of  man  lies  in  his  own 
hand.  Men  must  serve  God  from  pure  love,  not  from 
self-interest  or  fear.  This  doctrine  in  no  way  deteriorated 
the  morality  of  its  adherents,  who  would  yet  partake  of 
the  enjoyments  of  life  without  any  compunction.  Ac- 
cording to  Richter  ( Vortrage  ilber personlichc  Fortdaner), 
by  far  the  largest  number  of  our  theologians  are  agreed  in 
that  there  are,  in  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  written 
before  the  Babylonian  captivity,  no  clear  traces  of  the  doc- 
trine of  individual  life  beyond  the  grave.  The  Mosaic  law 
never  points  to  a reward  in  heaven  and  after  death. 

The  famous  Buddhism, *one  of  the  oldest,  and  atthesame 

• This  remarkable  atheistic  and  materialistic  religion  was  founded  on  a purely 
natural  basis  600  B.  C.  by  an  Indian  prince  named  Gautama  or  Buddha  (the  En- 
lightener, the  Wise)  or  Sakjamuni  (hermit  of  the  tribe  of  Sakja).  Rejecting  the 
hateful  system  of  castes,  he  taught  the  equality  and  brotherhood  of  all  men  ; he 
abolished  sacrifices  ; he  denied  the  existence  of  God  and  of  an  innate  conscience, 
and  sought  all  his  principles  in  man  only  and  in  the  love  of  one’s  neighbor.  This 
religion  possessed  so  thoroughly  the  faculty  of  speaking  to  the  minds  and  winning 
the  hearts  of  the  people  that  in  a comparatively  short  time  it  spread  over  nearly 
a third  of  the  then  existing  human  race,  without  wading,  like  Christianity, 
through  an  ocean  of  blood  and  atrocities,  In  the  year  800  after  Christ  it  was 
again  uprooted  in  India  by  the  reaction  of  the  priests  and  Brahmins,  who  had 
waged  most  bloody  religious  wars  upon  it.  It  was  then  diffused  all  the  more 
rapidly  and  effectually  over  the  neighboring  countries,  and  at  this  day  it  is  the 
most  widely  disseminated  religious  system  of  the  East,  mustering  a great  many 
more  adherents  than  Christianity.  The  cosmology  of  Buddha,  like  modern  sci- 
ence, teaches  as  the  beginning  of  things  the  existence  of  infinite  and  infinitely 
rare  matter,  out  of  which  the  individual  worlds  originated  gradually  by  condensa- 
tion. These,  however,  were  again  volatilized,  and  again  new  forms  arose,  and 
so  forth.  The  government  of  the  universe  consists  in  an  irrefragable  necessity, 
flowing  from  the  supreme  law  of  cause  and  effect.  The  worlds  follow  one  after 
another  in  gradation  and  become  more  and  more  perfect ; the  same  holds  good 
for  organized  beings,  until  at  last  all  return  to  the  original  state  of  rest  and  re- 
demption— the  so-called  Nirvana  or  nothingness.  Buddha  held  with  the  most 
complete  freedom  and  toleration  towards  other  opinions,  which  he  regarded  only 
as  lower  stages  of  knowledge.  In  order  to  prepare  worthily  for  his  great  mis- 
sion he  spent,  not  forty  davs  like  Christ,  but  several  years  in  the  wilderness  and 
in  solitude,  where  he,  according  to  the  Buddhist  legend,  was  like  Christ  tempted 
in  vain  of  the  devil.  The  same  legend  relates  that,  like  the  founder  of  Christian- 
ity, he  was  born  by  supernatural  means  of  Maya,  a king’s  daughter,  rendered 
pregnant  by  a ray  of  sunshine.  With  a view  of  destroying  the  misery  of  the  whole 
world,  the  Buddhists  also  sent  out  missionaries  like  the  Christians,  and  like  them 
held  councils  or  assemblies  of  the  Church.  Their  object  was  the  good  of  man- 
kind, in  opposition  to  Brahminism,  which  aimed  at  nought  but  personal  advance- 
ment The  zenith  of  Buddhism  was  attained  under  the  two  kings  Asoka,  the 
first  of  whom  raised  Buddhism  to  a state  religion  in  250  B.  C , without  however 
persecuting  any  other  creeds.  Under  their  rule  Brahmins  and  Buddhists  lived 


PERSONAL  CONTINUANCE, 


331 

time  the  most  widely  spread,  of  all  religious  systems  of 
the  world,  embracing,  as  it  does,  thirty-one  per  cent,  of 
the  entire  human  race,  knows  nothing  of  personal  immor- 
tality, and  preaches  (like  our  modern  pessimists  Leopardi, 
Hartmann,  etc.)  non-existence , or  the  definite  cessation  of 
personal  existence,  in  the  famous  Nirvana  or  nothingness, 
as  the  highest  aim  of  deliverance. 

peacefully  side  by  side.  Fifty  years  after  Christ,  King  Kanischka  called  the 
fourth  Council  together.  Max  Muller  describes  the  Buddhist  moral  code  as  one 
of  the  most  perfect  the  world  has  ever  seen,  although  Buddha  not  only  rejected 
the  theory  of  souls,  but  regarded  it  as  injurious  and  as  tending  to  superstition. 
In  the  place  of  theological  legends  and  tales,  the  great  sage  taught  wisdom,  be- 
nevolence, and  the  comfort  of  final  rest  ; it  was  he  — not  Christ — who  first  raised 
universal  love  for  man  to  the  rank  of  the  highest  virtue.  The  traditions  which 
surround  the  life  of  Buddha  bear  the  most  striking  resemblance  to  the  Christian. 
(Compare  the  National  Rtformtr,  1882,  No.  20.)  Unfortunately  Buddhism  (like 
Christianity)  degenerated  later  on  in  various  directions  in  those  countries  over 
which  it  ruled  and  became  imbued  with  all  imaginable  follies  and  insane  fancies, 
while  its  chief  principle,  the  Nirvana,  was  changed  into  a paradise,  full  of  miracles 
and  saints.  For  while  the  Buddhist  philosophers  and  thinkers  logically  devel- 
oped the  doctrine  of  the  founder  into  ever  clearer  Atheism,  it  was  turned  by  the 
uneducated  people  into  partly  monotheistic,  partly  polytheistic  systems,  and  mix- 
ing with  Brahministic  elements  it  departed  from  its  original  purity  ; on  the  other 
hand,  Brahminism  also  embodied  within  itself  a number  of  Buddhistic  elements. 
Christian  ideas  and  institutions  also  became  mingled  with  it  (especially  in  Thibet) 
as  Nestorian  Christianity  invaded  Central  Asia,  and  it  was  chiefly  owing  to  them 
that  the  Thibetan  church  has  now,  like  Catholicism,  its  pope  and  cardinals,  its 
bishops,  priests  and  nuns,  its  masses  for  the  dead,  its  paternosters  and  rosaries, 
its  holy  candles  and  holy  water,  its  processions,  feast-days  and  fast-days,  etc., 
and  that  divine  honor  is  paid  to  the  Dalai-Llama,  or  high-priest  of  Thibet,  the 
earthly  representative  of  the  now  deified  Buddha.  (See  further  details  in 
Radenhausen’s  Christ fnthum  ist  Heidcnthum , p.  80.)  Despite  all  this,  the  prin- 
ciples of  Buddhism  remain  so  powerful  in  some  of  its  adherents,  that  according 
to  Dr  J.  W.  Heifer’s  report  of  the  provinces  ofTenasserim,  the  Buddhists  do  not, 
like  the  adherents  of  other  religions,  seek  for  converts,  and  show  themselves 
equally. tolerant  of  all  creeds.  They  do  not  assert  that  their  religion  is  the  best 
or  only  true  one,  but  only  that  it  is  the  most  suitable  to  themselves.  Nor  do  they 
hesitate  to  adopt  certain  features  of  other  religions  which  seem  good  to  them.  It 
is  easy  to  understand  that  the  Buddhists  oppose  an  energetic  resistance  to  the 
attempts  at  conversion  made  by  Christian  missionaries.  When  English  parsons 
tell  them  that  they  should  adopt  the  religion  of  love  to  man  and  to  enemies  as 
their  own,  they  very  properly  reply  : “ What?  we  are  to  forgive  enemies  who  in- 
vade our  country  ? You  never  forgive  your  enemies.  While  you  preach  peace, 
you  are  blowing  trumpets  of  war.  Your  peaceable  voice  is  the  voice  of  powder 
and  shot.  You  preach  self-denial,  but  your  priests  live  in  wealth  and  luxury.  In 
your  worship  of  God  you  light  candles,  as  though  God  dwelt  in  darkness.  Go 
home  and  teach  your  own  people  to  be  peaceable,  honorable  and  temperate.” 
Some  Brahmins,  strongly  objecting  to  the  fanatical  religious  and  proselytizing  zeal 
of  Christianity,  said  to  Dr.  Haug,  professor  of  Sanscrit  in  the  British  College  of 
Puma  (Bombay  Presidency):  “ This  fanaticism  is  a clear  sign  of  mental  weakness 
■ufA  narrowness.  A wise  man  persecutes  no  one  on  account  of  his  religious  views.” 


332 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


The  original  religion  of  the  great  Confutsee  or  Confucius 
knew  just  as  little  of  a future  celestial  world,  of  a deity  ex- 
ternal to  the  universe,  of  dogmas  and  priests,  as  did  the 
ancient  popular  Chinese  religion  which  it  supplanted.  Both 
are  nothing  but  colorable  or  cultured  Atheism  and  Ma- 
terialism, and  rest  on  a thoroughly  realistic  conception  of 
the  world.  Confucius,  as  mentioned  in  an  earlier  chapter, 
never  speaks  of  a Creator  nor  of  a higher  order  of  the 
world,  and  a pious  regard  for  one’s  ancestors  is  the  only 
precept  of  his  religion  which  goes  beyond  the  individual  life. 

The  noble  Greek  nation,  whose  civilization  stood  in 
many  respects  high  above  that  of  our  conceited  age,  be- 
lieved only  in  a realm  of  shadows  as  the  abode  of  the 
departed.  This  so-called  Hades,  however,  was  for  them 
no  place  of  blessedness,  but  only  a lurid  reflex  of  real  life, 
or  the  grave  poetically  conceived.  Their  great  poet 
Homer  painted  it  in  the  gloomiest  colors,  and  makes 
Achilles,  as  the  ruler  of  the  dead,  say  to  Odysseus 
(Odyssey,  XI,  14 — 19)  : — 

“Rather  I’d  choose  laboriously  to  bear 
A weight  of  woes,  and  breathe  the  vital  air, 

A slave  to  some  poor  hind  that  toils  for  bread, 

Than  reign  the  sceptred  monarch  of  the  dead.” 

which  sentiments  are  found  in  a highly  different  garb  in 
Shakspeare’s  Measure  for  Measure , III,  1 : — 

“ The  weariest  and  most  loathed  worldly  life 
That  age,  ache,  penury  and  imprisonment 
Can  lay  on  nature,  is  a paradise 
To  what  we  fear  of  death.” 

The  famous  Book  of  the  Dead  of  the  ancient  Egyptians 
also  understands  the  judgment  which  awaits  each  soul  after 
death,  not  in  the  Christian  sense,  but  only  in  relation  to 
the  safest  mode  of  burial.  It  was  not  until  the  school  of 
Plato  became  more  powerful  that  the  dogma  of  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  began  to  spread  among  the  Greeks, 


PERSONAL  CONTINUANCE. 


333 

causing,  in  doing  so,  the  greatest  disturbances  (as  is  re- 
lated on  page  281  of  the  Systeme  de  la  Nature , vol.  I,  note 
78,  on  the  Argument  du  dialogue  de  Phe'don  de  la  tra- 
duction the  Dacier ) ; for  men,  discontented  with  their  lot, 
proceeded  to  take  away  their  own  lives.  Ptolemy  Phila- 
delphus,  king  of  Egypt  (so  the  story  proceeds),  on  seeing 
what  results  this  dogma,  now  thought  to  be  so  full  of 
blessing,  wrought  on  the  brains  of  his  subjects,  forbade  the 
teaching  of  it  under  penalty  of  death.* 

Travelers  tell  us  of  a good  many  savage  tribes  among 
whom  the  belief  in  the  personal  continuance  after  death 
does  not  exist  at  all,  or,  if  it  does,  only  in  combination  with 
ideas  that  make  it  meaningless  or  subvert  it.  (See  Meiners’ 
Kritische  Geschichte  der  Religionen,  1806  and  1807.) 
Bates  relates  of  the  Indians  of  the  Upper  Amazon  (vol.  II, 
page  214)  that  no  trace  can  be  found  among  them  of  any 
belief  in  a future  state,  that  only  those  who  have  had  inter- 
course with  white  men  speak  of  it,  and  even  then  only 
without  evincing  the  least  interest  in  the  matter.  Dr.  J. 
W.  Heifer  relates  of  the  Seelongs  of  India  that  they  know 
nothing  of  a life  after  death,  and  that  their  invariable 
answer  to  questions  on  such  matters  is  : “ We  do  not  think 
about  it.”  A good  many  similar  examples  have  already 
been  given. 

Among  all  nations  and  in  all  ages,  the  belief  in  immor- 
tality has  never  had  many  adherents  in  the  ranks  of  cultured 
and  enlightened  people,  although  for  reasons  easily  to  be 
understood,  these  have  not  always  brought  their  opinions 
and  ideas  forward  with  as  much  energy  as  those  holding 
opposite  views.  What  an  amount  of  abuse  had  not  the 
famous  Voltaire  to  endure,  because  he  had  ventured  to  an- 
nounce his  belief  in  the  perishable  character  of  the  human 
soul  ! And  even  in  our  time,  which  boasts  so  loudly  of  its 

* Similar  results  have  even  come  to  light  within  our  own  time.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  this  century  a deistical  sect  arose  in  Buddhist  Burmah,  which  believed  in 
an  omnipotent  and  omniscient  Nat  (spirit)  as  the  creator  of  the  world,  and  taught 
a species  of  immortality.  The  present  king  had  fourteen  of  these  “ heretics  ” 
brought  to  the  gallows,  and  cruelly  persecuted  the  sect.  (See  Ausland,  1858.) 


334 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


enlightenment,  the  great  David  Friedrich  Strauss  fared  not 
a whit  better.  “ I go  into  nothingness,”  said  Mirabeau  on 
his  deathbed  ; and  the  mighty  Danton,  on  being  asked  be- 
fore the  revolutionary  tribunal  about  his  calling  and  abode, 
answered:  ‘‘My  abode  will  soon  be  in  nothingness!” 
One  of  our  greatest  German  thinkers,  Frederick  the  Great, 
confessed  that  he  did  not  believe  in  personal  immortality. 

How  very  much,  in  the  present  century,  despite  all  the 
allegations  and  assurances  of  theologians  to  the  contrary, 
the  general  views  both  of  the  educated  and  uneducated 
classes  are  in  this  matter  opposed  to  the  dogmas  of  the 
Church,  can  be  denied  by  no  one  who  has  opportunities  of 
observing  people  in  positions  of  life  in  which  hypocrisy  and 
dissembling  are  out  of  the  question.  “ Who  with  eyes  in 
his  head,”  says  Feuerbach  very  correctly,  “ can  deny  that 
belief  in  individual  immortality  has  long  since  vanished 
from  ordmary  life,  and  only  exists  in  the  subjective  fancy 
of  individuals,  however  numerous  these  may  be?”  Else, 
how  could  the  fear  of  death  be  explained  which  still  pre- 
vails among  mankind,  despite  all  the  comforts  of  religion  ? 
How  would  it  be  possible  that  the  majority  of  men  should 
regard  death  as  the  greatest  evil,  in  that  it  puts  a sudden 
end  to  the  brief  joys  of  their  existence  ? or  because  it  only 
leads  to  that  state  so  terrible  in  the  fancy  of  the  living. 

Wo  Sonn’  und  Mond  nicht  gliinzen 
Und  keiner  Sterne  Licht, 

Wo  keines  Aethers  Scheinen 
Die  ew’ge  Nacht  durchbricht. 

Wo  Witlder  nicht,  noch  Wiesen 
Ergltih’n  in  grtiner  Pracht, 

Wo  keiner  Quelle  Rauschen 
Die  Lutt  ertonen  macht. 

Wo  keines  Vogels  Singen, 

Kein  Klang,  kein  Ton  der  Lust, 

Kein  Lied,  kein  Wort  der  Liebe 
Bewegt  die  Menschenbrust- 


PERSONAL  CONTINUANCE. 


335 


Wo  nur  ein  ewig  Schlafen 
In  ewig  dunkler  Nacht 
Der  kurzen  Lust  des  Lebens 
Ein  ewig  Ende  macht. 

(When  there  is  no  light  of  sun,  moon  or  stars,  when 
no  eternal  radiance  pierces  through  the  eternal  night ; 
when  neither  woods  nor  meadows  smile  in  emerald  glory, 
when  no  murmuring  of  rivulets  makes  the  air  resound  ; 
when  man’s  heart  is  never  moved  by  the  melody  of  birds, 
by  sound  or  note  of  gladness,  by  song,  or  by  word  of  love  ; 
when  only  an  eternal  sleep  in  an  eternal  night  puts  an 
eternal  end  to  the  brief  joys  of  life.) 

This  same  emotion,  united  to  the  thought  of  the  transi- 
tory nature  of  all  earthly  things,  is  expressed  in  the  beau- 
tiful lines  of  Platen,  our  great  poet  : — 

“ Warum  erfreun  wir  uns  am  Klang  der  Leyer, 

Am  holden  Spiel,  an  tausend  sussen  Trieben, 

Wenn  stets  im  Hintergrund  die  Furie  lauert 
Und  unser  Leben  zwo  Sekunden  dauert  ? ” 

(Why  do  we  rejoice  in  the  sound  of  the  lyre,  in  the 
sweet  tunes,  in  a thousand  joyful  delights,  if  the  Fury  is 
ever  lurking  in  the  background,  and  we  have  but  two 
seconds  to  live  ?) 

Lastly,  let  us  listen  to  the  beautiful  and  striking  words 
uttered  on  the  subject  by  an  Italian  philosopher,  Petrus 
Pomponatius,  who  lived  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  : “ If  we  assume  the  continued  existence  of  the  in- 
dividual, we  must  first  of  all  prove  that  the  soul  can  live 
without  requiring  the  body  as  subject  or  object  of  its 
activity.  We  cannot  think  without  sensations  ; but  these 
depend  on  corporeality  of  its  organs.  Thought  is  in  itself 
eternal  and  immaterial,  but  human  thought  is  bound  up 
with  the  senses  ; it  can  recognize  the  general  only  in  the 
special,  it  is  never  free  from  the  rule  of  space  and  time,  for 


336  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

its  ideas  come  and  go  one  after  the  other.  Our  soul  is 
therefore  really  mortal,  since  neither  consciousness  nor 
memory  can  endure.”  And  again  : — “ Virtue  is  far  purer 
when  practised  for  its  own  sake,  than  for  a reward.  Yet 
must  those  politicians  not  be  blamed  who  desire  that  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  should  be  taught  for  the  sake  of 
the  public  good,  in  order  that  the  weak  and  the  bad  might 
at  least  go  the  right  way  under  the  impulse  of  hope  or  fear, 
while  noble  free  spirits  choose  that  path  of  their  own  ac- 
cord. For  it  is  utterly  untrue  that  only  base  scholars  have 
denied  immortality , and  that  all  noble  sages  have  adopted 
it.  Homer , Pliny,  Simonides  and  Seneca , who  did  not 

cherish  this  hope , were  not  vile  on  that  account ; they  only 
managed  to  get  along  without  mercenary  servility P 


Vital  Force. 


If  we  seriously  believe  that  natural  laws  could  once  be  arbitrarily  set  aside  by  life, 
then  all  investigation  of  nature  as  well  as  of  souls  must  cease. — Ule. 

Many  people  imagine  that  they  have  expressed  and  explained  everything  with 
the  words  “vital  force  ” ; yet  they  have  only  made  an  idle  use  of  a hidden  and 
indefinite  cause,  which  explains  nothing,  and  is  but  a confession  of  ignorance. 
— Onimus. 

No  physiologist  thinks  nowadays  of  looking  upon  any  phenomena  of  life  as  the 
result  of  a marvelous  vital  force,  or  a special  purposively  active  force,  existing 
apart  from  outside  matter,  and  only  taking  the  physico-chemical  forces  into 
its  service  so  to  speak.  — Haeckel. 

The  theory  of  a special  vital  force  leads  necessarily  to  such  absurdities,  that  at 
this  day  no  naturalist  thinks  thereof,  who  has  any  serious  claim  to  that  title. 
— Pivany. 

A MONG  the  mystical  notions,  so  destructive  of  all  clear- 
ness  of  idea  in  natural  philosophy,  which  were  put 
forward  at  a time  deficient  in  knowledge  of  nature, 
and  which  modern  research  has  entirely  thrown  over- 
board, we  may  reckon  more  particularly  the  idea  of  a so- 
called  vital  force.  There  is  scarcely  any  theory  that  has  at 
any  time  more  deeply  injured  the  cause  of  science  than  the 
idea  of  a special  organized  force,  which  has  been  set  up  as 
a sort  of  antagonist  of  the  inorganic  forces,  such  as  weight, 
affinity,  light,  heat,  electricity,  magnetism,  etc.,  or  as  in- 
dependent of  them,  and  which  should  serve  as  an  ex- 
ceptional natural  law  for  living  things,  rendering  it  possible 
to  withdraw  them  from  the  influence  and  action  of  the  uni- 
versal laws  of  nature,  and  to  form,  so  to  speak,  a law  on  its 
own  account  and  a state  within  the  state.  If  science  were 

compelled  to  recognize  such  a law  our  axiom  of  the  uni- 
versality of  physical  laws  and  of  the  invariability  or  the 

(337) 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


338 

very  existence  of  an  order  in  nature  would  collapse  al- 
together. Fortunately,  science,  instead  of  being  in  this 
matter  compelled  to  retreat  before  the  irrational  onset  of 
dynamists  or  believers  in  force,  has  gained  a brilliant  vic- 
tory over  them  all  along  the  line  ; she  has  gathered 
together  such  a mass  of  striking  facts  that  the  theory  of  a 
special  vital  force  as  the  cause  and  foundation  of  vital 
phenomena  has  now  nothing  left  to  it  but  to  haunt  the 
borders  of  exact  science  like  a ghost,  to  wander  about  in 
the  heads  of  conceited  philosophers  or  of  those  who  have 
remained  far  behind  their  age  in  scientific  thought.  * 
“ For,”  as  Virchow  very  pertinently  remarks  {Archtv  f Hr 
path.  Anat.  utid  Physiol.,  IX,  vol.  1856,  part  1 and  2), 

‘ ‘ this  old  doctrine  of  a vital  force  is  not  an  erroneous 
teaching,  but  a mere  superstition,  the  relationship  of  which 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  devil  and  to  the  search  for  the  phil- 
osopher’s stone  cannot  be  denied.”  And  as  far  back  as 
eight  years  previously,  Prof.  Dubois-Reymond  felt  justified 
in  saying  in  his  famous  Untersuchutigen  iiber  thierische 
Elektricit'dt : “ Those  who  try  to  maintain  and  to  preach 
the  erroneous  doctrine  of  vital  force,  under  whatever  form,, 
and  in  ever  so  deceptive  a garb,  are  men  who  cannot 
possibly  have  ever  attained  the  limits  of  their  faculty  of 
thought.” 

There  can  at  this  day  be  no  scientific  doubt  that  life  obeys 
no  special  or  exceptional  laws,  and  that  it  does  not  stand 
outside  the  influence  of  inorganic  forces,  but  must  rather 
be  regarded  as  the  result  of  a definite  interaction  of  chemi- 
cal and  physical  forces  or  a peculiarly  complicated 
mechanical  group  of  motions,  for  the  explanation  of  which 
none  but  the  usual  and  known  forces  of  nature  can  and 
need  be  called  in.  He  who  thinks  it  necessary  to  conceive 
a theory  of  special  ‘ ‘ vital  force  ’ ’ in  order  to  explain  life, 
argues  as  rationally  as  one  who  tries  to  make  out  that  the 

* Even  a thinker  of  such  high  standing  as  Schopenhauer  could  not,  owing  to 
his  philosophic  prejudices  and  his  pet  theories,  free  himself  from  the  idea  of  a 
vital  force,  and  styled  attacks  on  it  simply  as  “ stupid.”  See  the  author’s  Aut 
Natur  and  IVissenschaft,  p.  129. 


Vital  force. 


339 


movements  of  a watch  are  traceable  to  the  working  of  some 
special  “watch-force,”  and  not  to  its  mechanical  organi- 
zation. But  just  as  the  movement  of  a watch  is  nought 
but  the  result  of  materials  and  forces  working  together  in 
a particular  manner,  so  life  also  is  no  force , but  a resultant 
or  movement  of  particles  grouped  in  a definite  order. 

With  a view  to  prove  this  more  fully  and  with  more  pre- 
cision, we  need  but  refer  to  chemistry,  which  was  able  to 
place  the  fact  beyond  doubt  that  the  chemical  elements  or 
fundamental  materials  are  identically  the  same  in  the 
organic  and  in  the  inorganic  world,  and  that  not  a 
single  atom  in  the  physical  groundwork  of  life  occurs 
which  is  not  equally  present  in  the  inorganic  world,  and 
active  in  the  cycle  of  material  changes.  Chemists  have 
succeeded  in  decomposing  organic  bodies  and  compounds 
into  their  elements,  and  in  separating  these  severally  from 
each  other,  exactly  in  the  same  way  that  they  had  long  be- 
fore done  in  the  case  of  inorganic  bodies  ; they  have  thus 
proved,  as  we  have  said,  that  these  elements  are  the  same 
in  both  departments,  and  that  it  is  only  the  method  of 
grouping  which  varies.  For  example,  a living  being  can 
be  reduced  into  a lot  of  inorganic  compounds  by  a process 
of  complete  combustion,  so  that  nothing  remains  except 
the  non-volatile  ashes,  and  this  without  a single  atom  being 
lost  in  the  process. 

This  one  fact  alone  should  suffice  to  relegate  every  idea  of 
a special  vital  force  from  science,  since  that  force,  as  shown 
in  an  earlier  chapter,  cannot  be  separated  from  matter, 
and  each  movement  occurring  on  such  a basis  must  result 
from  the  conditions,  capacities  or  forces  inherent  in  the 
atoms.  The  properties  of  the  atoms  are,  as  it  has  been 
more  scientifically  expressed,  indestructible,  and  no  edu- 
cated person  can  admit  that  the  merest  particle  of  oxygen 
can  change  its  essential  and  indestructible  nature  within  an 
organism  ; that,  for  instance,  an  atom  of  oxygen  within  an 
organism  can  be  influenced  by  an  adjoining  atom  of  hydro- 
gen otherwise  or  by  other  natural  laws,  and  vice  versa, 


34°  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

than  it  would  be  if  placed  outside  that  organism.  Life 
creates  neither  new  matter  nor  new  force  ; it  only  delights 
in  countless  changes,  which  proceed  without  exception  ac- 
cording to  the  great  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  or 
the  equivalency  of  all  dynamic  forces.  Each  contraction  of 
a muscle,  each  kind  of  work  performed  by  an  organism, 
involves  the  disappearance  of  a perfectly  definite  and  equiva- 
lent amount  of  heat.  If  organic  or  living  bodies  manifest 
properties  differing  from  those  of  the  inorganic,  it  is  not 
from  the  working  of  a special  force  present  within  them, 
but  only  from  the  peculiarity  of  their  chemical  composition, 
which  makes  the  effect  appear  as  a transitory  manifestation 
of  universal  matter.  Vital  force  is  therefore  no  principle, 
but,  as  remarked  heretofore,  a result.  When  an  organic 
compound  appropriates  and  assimilates  inorganic  matter 
that  exists  in  its  proximity,  it  does  not  do  so  by  virtue  of  a 
special  power,  but  only  by  a process  of  contagion,  whereby 
it  transmits  to  the  other  molecular  arrangements  of  its  own 
particles  of  matter,  just  in  the  same  way  as  the  inorganic 
world  energies  are  transmitted  from  particle  to  particle. 
In  this  way,  the  genesis  of  the  whole  organic  world  from  one 
or  more  beginnings,  however  small,  may  easily  be  ex- 
plained, without  resorting  to  the  notion  of  vital  force.  In 
the  chapter  on  primeval  generation  we  have  already  shown 
how  such  a beginning  may  and  must  have  occurred. 

It  is  generally  known  that  manifestations  of  life  occur 
habitually  only  when  albuminous  compounds  are  present. 
When  these  are  absent,  there  are  no  phenomena  of  life. 
To  this  it  may  doubtless  be  answered  that  these  compounds 
are  also  present  in  death.  But  in  death  they  are  obviously 
in  a state  of  transition  towards  quite  a different  chemical  or 
physical  condition,  which  supervenes  not  suddenly,  but 
gradually.  For  even  death,  which  is  erroneously  looked 
upon  as  the  opposite  of  life,  cannot  possibly  extinguish 
vital  functions  all  at  once.  The  isolated  muscular  fibre, 
removed  from  the  body,  contracts  when  under  the  influence 
of  electricity  ; and  even  hearts,  when  removed  from  the 


VITAL  FORCE. 


341 

body  and  thrown  out  of  all  normal  connections,  continue 
to  beat  or  to  move  for  hours  or  days  together.  Nay, 
severed  pieces  continue  to  move  or  pulsate,  offering  to  the 
observer  quite  a peculiar  and  weird  aspect.  In  men  who 
have  been  executed,  movements  of  the  heart  have  been  ob- 
served for  many  hours  after  death.  Blood-corpuscles  can 
be  poisoned  with  carbonic  oxide  in  the  re-agent  tube  quite 
as  well  as  in  the  blood-vessel  itself.  The  hair-bulb  con- 
tinues to  form  its  peculiar  products  in  the  corpse,  and  the 
liver  keeps  to  producing  glycogen.  After  death  by  cholera 
the  temperature  of  the  tissues  rises  instead  of  falling.  The 
severed  heads  of  beasts,  as  mentioned  in  the  chapter  on  the 
seat  of  the  soul,  may  be  recalled  to  life  and  consciousness 
by  the  injection  of  oxygenated  blood,  and  so  on. 

If,  after  this  general  exposition,  we  glance  at  individual 
instances,  we  find  that  not  only  simple  elementary  sub- 
stances, such  as  oxygen,  hydrogen,  carbon,  nitrogen,  etc., 
enter  into  the  chemical  composition  of  the  living  body  in 
the  most  varied  ways,  without  in  any  manner  changing 
their  nature,  but  that  this  is  also  the  case  in  regard  to  com- 
posite bodies.  Water,  which  must  be  regarded  as  the 
chief,  and  in  many  instances  by  far  the  greatest  part  of  all 
organized  beings,  and  without  which  no  animal  or  vege- 
table life  is  possible,  penetrates,  softens,  dissolves,  flows, 
falls  by  the  law  of  gravity,  evaporates,  condenses,  and  con- 
ducts itself  within  the  organism  in  a manner  that  differs  not 
even  by  a hair’s  breadth  from  the  way  it  does  outside.  The 
salts  of  calcium  which  it  contains  in  solution,  are  deposited 
by  it  in  the  bones  of  animals  or  the  tissues  of  plants,  where 
they  show  the  same  solidity  as  in  inorganic  nature.  The 
oxygen  of  the  air,  which  acts  on  the  dark  venous  blood  in 
the  lungs,  follows  exactly  the  universal  natural  law  of  the 
diffusion  of  gases,  and  imparts  to  the  blood  the  same 
bright-red  color  which  is  likewise  obtained  by  shaking  up 
air  and  blood  in  any  vessel.  The  carbon  contained  in  the 
blood  forms  carbonic  acid  by  combustion  through  this 
union,  which  takes  place  not  only  in  the  lungs,  but  also  in 


342 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


every  part  and  tissue  of  the  body,  just  as  in  every  com- 
bustion of  a carboniferous  compound,  thus  producing  the 
remarkable  phenomenon  of  animal  heat  which  is  not  there- 
fore, as  was  thought  formerly,  a product  of  vital  force,  but 
is  brought  about  in  exactly  the  same  or  in  a similar  way  as 
the  heat  of  an  oven  in  which  wood  or  coal  is  burnt. 

In  point  of  fact,  every  activity  of  an  organ  is  connected 
with  a chemical  change,  which  proceeds  inside  the  living 
body  according  to  exactly  the  same  laws  as  outside.  The 
animal  stomach  may  correctly  be  described  as  a chemical 
retort,  in  which  the  substances  brought  into  contact  with 
one  another  dissociate  and  re-combine  themselves  in  per- 
fect accord  with  the  laws  of  chemical  affinity.  A poison 
introduced  into  the  stomach  can  be  neutralized  by  a chemi- 
cal antidote,  just  in  the  same  way  as  though  the  proceeding 
had  taken  place  outside  ; a morbid  substance  present 
therein  can  also  be  neutralized  and  destroyed  by  chemical 
substances  introduced  in  it,  just  the  same  as  in  any  in- 
organic vessel.  The  chemical  changes  undergone  by  food 
during  its  stay  in  the  stomach  and  the  intestines  have  been 
ascertained  in  modern  times  almost  down  to  their  most 
minute  details,  and  so  has  been  the  way  in  which  they  are 
changed  into  the  tissues  and  compounds  of  the  body.  We 
know  equally  well  that  their  elementary  materials  leave  the 
body  again  by  various  roads  to  the  same  amount  as  they 
entered  it  ; partly  unchanged,  partly  in  other  forms  and 
conditions.  Not  a single  atom  is  lost  in  this  way  or 
changed  into  another.  Digestion  is  a purely  chemical  pro- 
cess. We  learn  the  same  from  the  action  of  medicines 
which  is  purely  chemical,  except  where  mechanical  forces 
come  also  into  play.  All  medicines  which  are  insoluble  in 
the  fluids  of  the  animal  organism  and  can  therefore  pro- 
duce no  chemical  reactions,  must  necessarily  be  regarded 
as  perfectly  ineffective. 

What  applies  to  the  chemical , applies  likewise  to  the 
physical  processes  going  on  within  the  living  body.  The 
circulation  of  the  blood  is  as  perfectly  mechanical  as  can 


VITAL  FORCE. 


343 


possibly  be  imagined,  and  the  anatomical  arrangements 
which  have  that  circulation  for  their  object,  bear  a most  re- 
markable resemblance  to  the  mechanical  works  of  the  human 
hand.  The  heart  is  furnished  with  valves  like  a steam-engine, 
and  the  closing  of  these  valves  produces  a loud,  audible 
noise.  The  air,  on  entering  the  lungs,  undergoes  friction 
against  the  sides  of  the  air-tubes,  and  causes  the  respira- 
tory sound.  Its  ingress  and  egress  are  induced  by  purely 
physical  forces.  The  rising  of  the  blood  from  the  lower 
limbs  to  the  heart,  in  opposition  to  the  law  of  gravity,  is 
rendered  possible  only  by  purely  mechanical  arrangements. 
The  intestine  propels  its  contents  mechanically  by  peris- 
taltic activity  ; all  muscular  actions  are  mechanical,  and  to 
them  are  to  be  traced  the  movements  performed  by  both 
men  and  animals  in  walking.  The  construction  of  the  eye 
rests  on  the  same  laws  as  does  the  construction  of  a camera 
obscura,  and  the  ear  receives  the  waves  of  sound  like  any 
other  cavity. 

If,  as  must  be  acknowledged,  many  of  the  processes 
going  on  in  the  living  organism  are  not  as  yet  explicable 
by  physical  or  chemical  phenomena,  and  if  we  are  still  met 
by  problem  upon  problem,  we  ought  not  to  hold  Nature 
responsible  for  this,  but  only  the  imperfection  of  our 
knowledge.  However,  as  time  goes  on  and  Science  makes 
more  and  more  headway,  there  is  a gradual  subsidence  of 
the  obstacles  that  are  still  to  be  found  in  the  path  of  a 
mechanical  explanation  of  vital  phenomena.  Let  us  think 
of  our  latest  acquirements,  and  remember  how,  within  a 
comparatively  small  number  of  years,  so  many  phenomena 
have  been  conclusively  explained  which  in  their  obscurity 
appeared  heretofore  as  the  most  powerful  advocates  of  the 
case  of  those  who  held  with  miraculous  vital  energies.  How 
long  is  it  since  the  chemistry  of  respiration  or  digestion 
first  became  known  ; how  long  since  the  processes  of 
generation  and  fertilization  emerged  from  their  mystic  dark- 
ness, to  be  classed  among  the  simplest  mechanical  actions 
of  the  inorganic  world  ? The  seed  is  no  longer  regarded 


344 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


as  a living  fluid,  giving  out  an  enlivening  vapor,  but  as  a 
matter  moving  mechanically  through  the  instrumentality 
of  the  spermatozoa  ; and  what  was  heretofore  looked  upon 
as  the  mysterious  action  of  that  enlivening  vapor,  re- 
solves itself  directly  and  mechanically  into  the  contact  of 
ovum  and  sperm.  How  many  processes  going  on  within 
the  animal  body,  such  as  the  rising  of  small  particles  on 
the  mucous  membrane  and  towards  the  exterior,  contrary 
to  the  law  of  gravitation,  seemed  inexplicable  and  appeared 
to  call  for  the  theory  of  a vital  force,  until  the  interesting 
phenomenon  of  ciliate  motion,  a process  resting  on  purely 
mechanical  principles,  was  brought  to  light.  This  re- 
markable movement  is  independent  of  vital  energies,  and 
continues  long  after  death  ; it  is  brought  to  an  end  only 
with  the  complete  softening  of  the  organized  parts  through 
putrefaction.  In  a turtle,  as  late  as  fifteen  days  after  death, 
while  the  flesh  was  falling  away  into  putrid  slime,  the 
ciliated  cells  were  still  engaged  in  their  peculiar  motion. 
What  an  amount  of  light  was  thrown  on  the  wonder- 
ful processes  going  on  within  the  blood  by  the  discovery  of 
blood-corpuscles,  and  on  the  processes  of  absorption  and 
resorption  by  the  discovery  of  the  laws  of  endosmosis  and 
exosmosis  ! That  marvelous  and  apparently  incompre- 
hensible physiological  activity  of  the  animal  body,  the 
nervous , is  now  having  quite  a new  light  thrown  upon  it 
by  natural  philosophy  ; and  every  day  it  is  becoming  more 
obvious  that  electricity , a well-known  natural  force,  plays 
a most  important  part  in  these  organic  phenomena. 

“Life,”  says  Virchow,  “is  only  a particular  kind  of 
mechanics ; it  is,  in  point  of  fact,  the  most  complicated 
form  thereof,  it  is  that  in  which  the  ordinary  mechanical 
laws  are  brought  into  play  under  the  most  unusual  and 
varied  conditions  ; hence,  the  final  results  are  separated 
from  the  beginnings  of  the  change  by  so  great  a number 
of  swiftly  subsiding,  intermediate  links,  that  we  can  find 
the  connection  only  with  the  very  greatest  difficulty.”  — 
“The  living  organism,”  says  Professor  Matteucci,  “ is  a 


VITAL  FORCE. 


345 

machine,  like  the  steam-engine  or  the  electro-magnetic 
machine  ; that  is  to  say,  a system  in  which  chemical  af- 
finities, especially  the  union  of  the  oxygen  of  the  air  with 
the  materials  of  alimentation,  produce  heat,  electricity  and 
muscular  work.”  He  might  have  added,  “ and  mental 
work  too,”  for  we  know  that  without  chemical,  mechanical 
and  physical  changes,  not  only  no  movement  can  exist, 
but  no  feeling,  no  thought,  and  no  volition  either.  Sen- 
sation is  only  a special  mode  of  motion  of  organized 
matter  ; and  since,  as  we  have  shown  already,  all  psychical 
activity  may  be  traced,  in  the  last  instance,  to  the  elements 
of  sensation  (just  as  all  bodily  organization  is  formed  by 
groupings  of  the  “ cells  ”),  the  highest  activity  of  the  living 
organism  forms  no  exception  to  the  general  rule.  All 
matter  is  capable  of  sensation,  and  every  living  body 
sensates. 

To  the  chemists,  who  deny  the  necessity  of  the  theory 
of  vital  force,  it  has  been  retorted  that  Chemistry  itself 
is  unable  to  form  organized  compounds,  that  is  to  say,  to 
make  those  special  groupings  of  chemical  elements  in 
ternary  or  quaternary  compounds,  the  realization  of  which 
implies  in  each  instance  that  of  an  organic  being  endowed 
with  life  and  vital  power  ; and  those  who  make  this  retort 
courteous,  added  thereto  this  funny  remark  that  if  there 
were  no  such  thing  as  vital  force,  and  if  life  were  only  a 
product  of  chemical  action,  then  chemists  would  be  able  to 
produce  organized  beings  in  their  retorts  and  perhaps 
actually  to  make  men  ! * This  suggestion  has  not  been 
left  unanswered  by  the  chemists.  They  have  shown  that 

* This  insinuation  is  funny,  because  our  opponents  forget  that  in  order  to  pro- 
duce organic  beings  it  is  not  enough  to  have  the  chemical  materials  in  hand,  out 
of  which  these  are  formed,  but  that,  in  order  to  produce  such  bodies,  it  is  neces- 
sary that  a number  of  difficult  and  complicated  conditions  should  be  complied 
with,  which  conditions  we  are  quite  unable  to  bring  about  artificially,  and  among 
which  the  indispensable  influence  of  protracted  periods  of  time  plays  a principal 
part.  But  there  are  also  a number  of  inorganic  bodies  which  we  cannot  produce 
artificially,  and  yet  no  one  supposes  that  these  owe  their  origin  to  anything  but 
phsysico-chemical  processes.  Among  these  may  be  mentioned  the  diamond, 
precious  stones,  quartz,  granite,  topaz,  malachite,  lava,  etc.  The  reader  can 
consult  on  this  point  the  close  of  the  first  essay  in  the  author’s  Die  Darwin'  sche 
Theorie  in  seeks  Vorlesungen. 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


346 

Chemistry  is  perfectly  able  to  build  up  the  fundamental 
constituents  of  organic  life.  Thus  the  French  chemist 
Berthelot  succeeded  in  making  ethane , the  fundamental 
binary  compound  of  organic  chemistry,  out  of  nothing  but 
its  elements,  carbon  and  hydrogen,  and  by  the  help  only  of 
the  forces  working  in  inorganic  nature  ; he  thus  produced 
for  synthesis  or  the  artificial  composition  of  organic  bodies, 
a starting-point  that  could  not  possibly  be  dependent  on 
organic  nature.*  “We  must  therefore  conclude,’’  as 
Berthelot  says,  “ that  organic  chemistry  now  rests  on  the 
same  experimental  principles  as  inorganic.  In  both 
sciences,  synthesis,  as  well  as  analysis,  has  only  the  action 
of  the  same  forces  on  the  same  elements  to  go  by.  . . . 
The  task  of  synthesis  is  to  determine  the  precise  com- 
position of  bodies  and  to  yield  the  proof  that  the 
fundamental  laws  of  inorganic  and  organic  chemistry  are 
identical.”  For  this  reason  it  has  become  impossible  at 
this  day  to  speak  of  a special  organic  chemistry,  except 
for  the  sake  of  convenience,  and  the  line  formerly  drawn 
between  organic  and  inorganic  chemistry  (the  first  of  which 
is  now  usually  called  the  chemistry  of  carbon  or  of  the  com- 
pounds of  carbon)  is  at  present  but  “ a conventional  aid  for 
classification,  which  in  no  wise  corresponds  to  the  nature 
of  the  phenomena,  but  which  we  only  preserve  for  con- 
venience.”— (Dr.  Schiel.)  Synthetical  chemistry  has  of  late 
years  made  such  rapid  strides,  and  still  goes  on  progressing 
at  such  a rate,  that  it  is  impossible  as  yet  to  see  where  her 
bold  advances,  which  have  already  produced  such  great  re- 
sults, are  to  stop.f 

* Berthelot  first  united  carbon  and  nitrogen  into  acetylene  with  the  aid  of  elec- 
tricity, and  then  formed  olefiant  gas,  or  ethane,  by  the  addition  of  hydrogen.  All 
the  other  hydrocarbons  can  be  built  up  from  acetylene.  Berthelot  made  methyl- 
alcohol  out  of  marsh-gas  and  oxygen  ; out  of  the  same  and  the  elements  of  water 
he  made  ordinary  alcohol ; out  of  alcohol  and  hydrocarbons  he  formed  the  organic 
acids  ; and  out  of  alcohol  and  ammoniac  he  made  the  amide  and  organic  basis. 

t In  the  year  1828  Wohler,  in  artificially  making  urea,  a pre-eminently  organic 
substance,  from  ammonium  cyanate,  destroyed  the  theory  that  organic  compounds 
could  only  be  produced  by  organized  bodies.  In  1856  Berthelot  performed  the 
synthesis  of  formic  acid  from  inorganic  materials,  that  is  to  say  from  carbon  ox- 


VITAL  FORCE. 


347 


If  the  view  mentioned  hereinbefore,  viz.  that  ternary  and 
quaternary  compounds  can  only  be  originated  by  vital 
force,  were  carried  to  its  legitimate  conclusions,  it  would 
become  necessary  to  deny  vital  force  precisely  to  those 
organized  beings  in  whom  the  principle  of  life  is  most 
highly  developed  ; for  it  is  well  known  that  animals  lack 
the  power  to  form  organic  compounds  out  of  inorganic,  and 
that  they  are  therefore  absolutely  dependent  for  their  sub- 
sistence on  the  vegetable  world,  which  alone  is  able  to  turn 
inorganic  into  organic  substances. 

From  all  this  no  one,  who  values  facts  and  is  acquainted 
with  the  method  of  scientific  induction,  can  have  the  least 
doubt  that  the  conception  of  a special  organic  force,  which 
produces  phenomena  of  life  independently  and  apart  from  the 
universal  laws  of  nature,  must  be  banished  from  the  pro- 
vince of  life  and  science  ; that  nature  with  its  matter  and 
force  is  one  single  indivisible  whole,  without  limits  or 
exceptions  ; again,  that  the  hard  and  fast  line  of  division, 
which  some  have  sought  to  draw  between  organic  and  in- 
organic, can  only  be  a forced  one,  and  that  a difference 
between  the  two  exists  only  in  the  outward  form  and  in  the 
grouping  of  the  material  atoms,  but  by  no  means  in  the 

ide  and  water,  heated  with  caustic  potash,  without  the  co-operation  of  either 
plant  or  animal  Soon  afterwards,  the  synthesis  of  alcohol,  or  spirit  of  wine,  was 
successfully  accomplished  directly  from  its  elements,  carbon,  hydrogen  and 
oxygen.  With  the  help  of  alcohol  thus  obtained,  a whole  series  of  other  organic 
bodies  and  a number  of  new  compounds  were  produced,  such  as  the  various  kinds 
of  ether,  many  vegetable  oils  and  perfumes,  many  organic  acids,  such  as  racemic, 
lactic,  acetic,  oxalic  acid,  and  so  on.  Even  fat  can  now  be  artificially  made  from 
fatty  acids  and  glycerine,  both  of  which  can  be  formed  by  purely  chemical  means, 
and  it  is  hoped  that  ere  long  it  will  have  become  possible  to  perform  the  synthesis 
of  sugar  and  albumen,  that  is  to  say  of  absolutely  organic  articles  of  nourishment. 
“ We  may  hope,”  says  Berthelot,  at  the  end  of  his  admirable  work  on  chemical 
synthesis,  “ to  form  anew  all  substances  which  have  been  developed  since  the 
beginning  of  things,  and  to  do  this  under  the  same  conditions  and  the  same  laws 
and  by  the  aid  of  the  same  forces,  which  Nature  has  used  in  their  formation.” 
The  method  employed  by  Berthelot  to  bring  about  his  remarkable  results  (sealing 
up  inorganic  substances  hermetically  in  glass  globes,  and  subjecting  them  for 
months  to  a high  temperature)  strikingly  recalls  the  chemical  and  physical  con- 
ditions of  what  used  to  be  primal  ocean,  at  the  bottom  of  which  must  have  ap- 
peared the  earliest  organic  compounds.— Compare  on  this  question  the  essay  : 
Kiinstliche  Darstellung  der  or  ganischen  Verbindungen  aus  ihren  Elcmenten,  in 
Unsere  Tage,  part  78,  1865,  p.  779. 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


348 

intrinsic  character.  The  difference  between  organic  and 
inorganic  forms  arises  in  reality  but  from  the  fact  that  the 
first  grouping  of  the  molecules  is  different,  and  being  so, 
includes  the  germ  of  those  forms.  But  the  structure  of  the 
crystal  and  the  remarkable  phenomena  of  the  reparation  of 
injured  crystals  prove  that  there  exist  in  the  inorganic 
world  certain  laws  of  form  that  cannot  be  infringed,  and 
which  come  very  close  to  those  of  the  organic  world. 
Modern  research  has  shown  that  the  crystal , being  the  in- 
organic primal  form,  stands  in  a much  nearer  relation  and 
analogy  to  the  cell,  or  organic  primal  form,  than  was  for- 
merly supposed  to  be  the  case.  Both  use  selection  as  to 
that  which  they  take  up  from  their  surroundings  ; both 
are  subject  to  definite  external  influences  in  their  formation  ; 
both  can  evolve  themselves  out  of  the  same  compounds  of 
materials.  As  we  noted  heretofore  on  page  71,  certain 
microscopic  crystals  (named  crystalloids  by  Nageli),  which 
have  been  found  in  the  interior  of  plant  and  animal  cells, 
are  capable  of  imbibing,  that  is  to  say,  they  take  in  fluid 
matters  from  outside  and  swell  up  just  like  cells.  They 
thus  show  all  the  essential  properties  of  protoplasms  or  the 
albuminous  contents  of  the  cell,  wherefore  they  were  named 
“protein  crystals  ’’  by  Reichert,  who  first  discovered  them 
in  the  interior  of  the  animal  body,  in  1849.  Crystalloids 
have  been  produced  by  crystalizing  artificially-formed  car- 
bon-compounds. Their  curved  sides  obviously  yield  a transi- 
tional form  from  the  true  crystals  proper  to  the  forms  of 
living  nature,  and  the  cause  of  these  appears  to  reside  in 
the  peculiar  character  of  carbon,  which  lies  at  the  root  of 
the  organic  world  ; of  this  we  have  a proof  of  the  diamond 
with  its  curved  sides,  which  consists  of  pure  carbon.  “ The 
wide  gulf,’’  says  Prof.  Cohn,  of  Breslau,  at  the  close  of  a 
circumstantial  work  on  these  remarkable  bodies,  “which 
has  hitherto  separated  the  crystals  of  the  inorganic  world 
from  the  organized  cellular  forms  of  the  plant  and  animal 
worlds,  is  filled  up  by  the  protein  crystals.’’ 

Those  who  still  cling  to  the  theory  of  a vital  force  are 


VITAL  FORCE. 


349 


fighting  a hopeless  battle.  Let  individual  mystics  among 
naturalists  try,  as  they  may.  to  instill  fresh  life  into  the 
corpse  ; let  any  number  of  philosophers  mourn  the  loss 
of  this  favorite  child  of  the  spiritualistic  confusion  of 
thoughts  ; how  forcibly  soever  some  may  go  on  pointing 
to  the  inexplicability  and  obscurity  of  many  processes  of 
life, — — the  doom  of  the  theory  alluded  to  must  neverthe- 
less be  looked  upon  as  sealed.  “The  appeal  to  so 
mysterious  a force  is,  ’ ’ as  Karl  Vogt  remarks,  ‘ ‘ but  a para- 
phrase of  ignorance  ; it  is  but  one  out  of  a number  of 
back-doors  of  which  there  are  not  a few  in  science,  and 
which  are  always  the  refuges  of  those  indolent  minds  that 
will  not  take  the  trouble  to  investigate  anything  they  do  not 
understand,  but  are  satisfied  to  marvel  at  the  seeming 
miracle.’’  Vital  force  is  well  compared  by  Prof.  O. 
Schmidt  (. Descendenz-Lehre  und  D arwinismus)  to  “a 
ghost,  which  scarcely  knows  where  to  play  its  pranks.” 
Ideas  on  vital  force  have,  in  the  course  of  history,  passed 
through  the  same  phases  as  those  of  force  and  matter  in 
natural  philosophy,  described  in  the  first  chapter.  While 
the  theory  of  life  in  its  first  phase  was  completely,  and  in 
its  second  incompletely  separated  from  the  conceptions  of 
force  and  matter,  the  third  or  last  phase  of  modern 
thought  has  made  it  clear  that  there  exists  an  absolute 
unity  or  indivisibility  of  the  bodily  substance  and  its  vital 
properties.  Life  can  neither  create  a new  material  or  a 
new  force,  nor  destroy  an  existing  one  ; and  if  all  the  con- 
ditions were  known  under  which  chemical  manifestations 
of  life  proceed,  it  would  be  seen  that  there  is  no  difference 
between  these  activities  and  those  which  can  be  performed 
outside  the  body.  Each  force  which  the  body  evolves  or 
loses,  comes  and  goes  with  the  ponderable  substance  taken 
in  or  extruded  ; the  universally  recognized  eternal  princi- 
ples of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  the  conservation 
of  energy  are  absolutely  opposed  to  the  notion  of  peculiar 
organic  force.  Here,  as  everywhere,  matter  and  force  are 
eternal  and  indestructible. 


350  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

We  close  this  chapter  with  some  words,  which  are  as 
forcible  as  they  are  well-founded.  They  are  taken  from 
Prof.  Haeckel  on  vital  force,  in  his  work  on  the  Entwick- 
lungsga.7ig  und  Aufgabe  der  Zoologie  (Jena,  1869)  : “ This 
much  at  least  has  been  won,  that  the  metaphysical  ghost  of 
a so-called  zdtal force  is  banished  wholly  and  for  ever  not 
only  from  the  province  of  human,  but  also  from  that  of  all 
animal  physiology.  No  truly  scientific  investigation  and 
explanation  of  vital  phenomena  can  at  this  day  admit  this 
mystic  product  of  dualistic  confusion  which,  now  as  a de- 
signing vital  principle,  now  as  a designing  final  cause,  now 
as  an  organic  creative  force,  has  worked  so  much  error 
and  mischief.” 


The  Soul  of  Brutes. 


The  Intelligence  of  the  brute  shows  itself  in  just  the  same  way  as  that  of  man. — 
It  is  impossible  to  prove  the  existence  of  an  essential  difference  between  instinct 
and  reason  ; whatever  difference  exists  is  but  one  of  degree. — Krahmer. 

The  human  body  is  a modified  animal  form  ; the  soul  of  man  is  but  an  animal 
soul,  raised  by  involution  to  a certain  power. — Burmeister. 

Instinct  is  a mere  empty  word,  a mere  cloak  for  our  ignorance  or  intellectual 
indolence. — F.  E.  Noll. 

The  notion  that  animals  are  incapable  of  forming  ideas,  opinions  or  inferences, 
runs  counter  to  all  teaching  derived  from  experience.— Czolbe. 

THE  best  authorities  on  physiology  and  on  the  subject 
of  animal  intelligence  are  at  the  present  time  fairly 
agreed  in  that  the  soul  of  brutes  is  not  distinguishable 
in  quality,  but  only  in  quantity  or  degree  from  that  of 
human  beings.  Man  has  no  absolute  superiority  over  the 
brute  ; all  his  advantages  are  more  or  less  of  a mere  com- 
parative nature.  There  is  no  intellectual  capacity  which 
belongs  solely  and  exclusively  to  man  ; it  is  only  the 
greater  strength  and  the  higher  development  of  these  capa- 
cities, aided  by  their  more  perfect  co-operation,  which  give 
him  his  great  and  marvelous  superiority  over  the  brute. 
But  the  reason  why  these  capacities  are  greater  and  more 
developed  in  man  is  to  be  sought  partly  in  the  higher  and 
more  perfect  development  of  his  organ  of  thought,  and 
partly  in  the  absolute  change  wrought  in  the  conditions  of 
life  by  his  erect  posture,  in  the  different  way  in  which  he 
uses  his  fore-limbs  and  in  the  fact  of  his  possessing  articu- 
late speech.  But  just  as  it  is  possible  to  show  in  the  physi- 
cal development  of  the  organ  of  thought  an  uninterrupted 
scale  of  gradual  development  from  the  lowest  animal  to 

(351) 


352 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


the  highest  human  being,  so  a similar  ascent  of  psychical 
and  mental  properties  in  ever  rising  development  may  be 
found  in  him.  Neither  morphology,  nor  chemistry,  nor 
macroscopy,  nor  microscopy  is  capable  of  discovering  an 
essential  difference  between  human  and  animal  brains  ; 
great  though  the  differences  may  be,  they  are  after  all  but 
differences  of  degree.  This  accounts  for  the  absolute 
failure  that  has  attended  all  the  attempts  made  by  some 
scientists  even  down  to  our  own  time,  to  discover  any 
such  characteristic  or  essential  differences,  and  on  the 
strength  of  these  to  assign  to  man  a special  place  and 
classification  in  natural  history. 

In  keeping  with  this,  all  the  well-known  physiological  or 
psychological  differences,  which  in  all  ages  have  been 
brought  forward  as  proofs  of  the  existence  of  an  insuper- 
able gulf  between  men  and  animals,  have  appeared  on 
closer  investigation  to  be  either  non-existent,  or  else  to 
have  but  a relative  instead  of  an  absolute  value.  It  has  be- 
come an  axiom  among  all  empirical  psychologists  and  all 
students  of  human  nature  who  judge  by  experience,  that 
the  highest  mental  capabilities  of  man  began  to  germinate 
in  very  inferior  regions,  and  that  the  mental  activities, 
abilities,  feelings  and  tendencies  of  man  appear  in  their 
primary  forms  in  the  animal  soul  to  an  almost  incredible 
extent.  Love,  faithfulness,  gratitude,  .the  sense  of  duty, 
piety,  conscientiousness,  friendship  and  love  of  one’s 
neighbor,  compassion  and  self-abnegation,  the  feeling  of 
right  and  wrong,  nay  even  pride,  jealousy,  hatred,  crafti- 
ness, treachery,  vindictiveness  and  inquisitiveness  are  as 
well  to  be  found  among  animals  as  premeditation,  sagacity, 
the  highest  degree  of  cunning,  foresight,  thought  for  the 
future,  and  so  on  ; nay,  the  animal  shares  with  man  even 
the  gourmandise  and  capacity  for  progress  which  are 
thought  to  belong  to  man  only.  It  knows  and  practices 
even  the  institutes  or  principles  of  political  and  social  life, 
of  slavery  and  precedence,  of  domestic  and  rural  economy, 
of  education,  nursing  of  the  sick  and  medicine  ; it  puts  up 


THE  SOUL  OF  BRUTES. 


353 


the  most  wonderful  fabrics  in  the  shape  of  houses,  caves, 
nests,  roads  and  bridges  ; animals  hold  even  meetings  and 
joint  deliberations,  and  initiate  trials  of  criminals  and  cul- 
prits ; they  consult  on  definite  plans  and  projects  by  the 
aid  of  a well-developed  language,  consisting  of  sounds, 
signs  and  gestures  ; they  fully  remember  the  past  ; they  are 
taught  by  experience  and  are,  in  a word,  as  much  and 
even  more  highly  endowed  beings  than  most  men  know  or 
even  dream  of.* 

Nought  but  absolute  ignorance  and  inconceivable  super- 
erogation have  taught  man  to  designate  the  undeniable 
psychical  phenomena  of  animal  life  as  mere  “ instinct 
a word  derived  from  the  Latin  instingucre , which  means 
“to  incite”  or  “spur  on,”  and  therefore  presupposes  of 
necessity  the  existence  of  a supernatural  inciter  or  in- 
stigator. But  just  the  same  as  there  exists  neither  a vital 
force,  nor  a self-contained  psychical  being,  nor  an  innate 
idea,  so  there  is  no  such  thing  as  instinct  in  the  generally 
accepted  meaning  of  an  unconscious,  irresistible,  unerring, 
unchangeable  impulse  of  nature  or  natural  tendency,  im- 
planted within  the  souls  of  animals  for  their  welfare  or 
conservation.  All  unprejudiced  investigators  declare  them- 
selves most  emphatically  opposed  to  such  a senseless 
theory,  which  would  make  every  kind  of  scientific  animal 
psychology  a matter  of  impossibility.  The  word  “in- 
stinct” is,  as  Dr.  Weinland  says,  “ obviously  nothing  more 
than  a makeshift  invented  by  indolence,  to  relieve  us  of 
the  difficult  task  of  studyingthe  animal  soul  ; ” or,  as  Lewes 
remarks,  it  is  “one  of  those  words  by  which  men  hide 
their  own  ignorance  from  themselves.”  The  animal  is  led 
and  guided  in  its  daily  life  neither  by  a blind,  involuntary 
impulse,  nor  by  the  influence  of  a higher  power,  but  by  re- 
flection, arising  from  comparison,  judgment  and  con- 
clusions, in  all  of  which  an  essential  part  is  played  by  the 

* The  detailed  experimental  proof  of  the  above  statement  may  be  found  in  the 
author’s  two  works  on  animal  physiology,  (i,)  Mind  in  Animals , (and  2)  Liebe  und 
Liebeslcben  in  der  Thierwelt. 


354 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


organization  and  mental  tendency  inherited  from  parents. 
Even  the  process  of  thought  through  which  this  is  done,  is 
essentially  the  same  as  in  the  case  of  men,  although  the 
power  of  judgment  is  very  much  weaker,  and  the  inherited 
mental  tendency,  owing  to  this  lesser  power  of  judgment, 
comes  forward  more  conspicuously  than  it  does  in  man. 
We  might  therefore  with  just  as  good  a right  contend  that 
man  works  only  by  the  impulse  of  instinct,  as  trace  the 
actions  of  animals  to  that  source.  But  the  one  is  as  much 
a mistake  as  the  other.  Both  act  by  understanding  or 
reason  and  by  what  maybe  termed  instinct,  if  it  be  desired 
to  preserve  this  word  as  the  equivalent  of  the  inherited 
mental  tendencies  of  faculties  of  the  nervous  system  ; the 
only  difference  is  that  the  animal  acts  more  by  instinct,  and 
man  more  by  reflection.  The  difference  is  not  one  of 
principle,  but  of  degree.  There  is  moreover  the  sense  of 
smell,  which,  being  so  much  more  highly  developed  in 
animals  than  in  man,  enables  the  former  to  perform  achieve- 
ments which  seem  inexplicable  at  the  first  glance,  and 
apparently  go  to  justify  the  theory  of  a special  innate  in- 
stinct, whereas  a well -instructed  person  perceives  in  all 
this  nothing  but  a simple  and  natural  connection. 

“ It  is  the  height  of  folly,”  says  the  famous  Systeme  de 
la  Nature , “ to  deny  intellectual  capacities  to  animals  ; they 
feel,  think,  judge  and  compare  ; they  choose  and  deliber- 
ate, they  have  memories,  they  evince  love  and  hatred,  and 
their  senses  are  often  more  delicate  than  our  own.” 

It  is  not  by  instinct,  but  by  reflection,  that  the  fox  makes 
a hole  which  has  two  outlets,  or  has  a so-called  escape  to 
it,  and  steals  fowls  at  an  hour  when  he  knows  that  master 
and  servants  are  away  or  at  meals.  It  is  not  instinct,  but 
experience  that  makes  older  animals  more  sagacious  and 
prudent  than  younger  ones  ; and  if,  in  places  where  foxes 
are  much  hunted,  it  is  found  that  the  young  animals,  on 
first  coming  out,  show  gi'eater  prudence  than  in  other 
parts,  this  is  the  result  of  a special  tendency  to  watchful- 
ness inherited  from  their  parents  and  ancestors.  Why  do 


THE  SOUL  OF  BRUTES. 


355 


birds  that  are  shot  at,  such  as  crows  and  sparrows,  show 
no  fear  of  people  who  carry  no  guns  ? and  how  is  it  that  no 
fear  of  a man  is  shown  by  animals  living  in  uninhabited 
islands  and  having  never  seen  any  men  nor  never  been 
chased  by  them  ? 

Woldemar  Schultz,  in  the  account  of  his  Brazilian 
travels,  (. Ansland , 1866,  No.  24),  relates  that  old  mules, 
who  have  grown  grey  in  the  service  of  man,  often  get 
quite  beside  themselves  at  the  sight  of  a packing-case,  and 
kick  out  at  the  object  of  their  torture.  Others,  more  cun- 
ning than  these,  allow  themselves  to  be  loaded,  and  then 
begin  to  run  and  jump  about,  till  they  have  thrown  every- 
thing off.  “It  is  wonderful,’’  says  Schultz,  “how  the 
older  loaded  mules  during  their  journeys  only  choose  such 
paths  between  rocks  and  trunks  of  trees  that  are  far  enough 
apart  to  let  them  and  their  loads  through  ; with  this  ob- 
ject they  will  often  make  considerable  detours.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  younger  animals  are  not  so  particular  about 
it  and  make  no  end  of  trouble  in  trying  to  get  their  loads 
through  narrow  passes.’’  Examples  illustrating  the  in- 
telligence and  reflective  ability  of  animals  are  as  striking  as 
they  are  well-known  ; in  fact  they  are  so  numerous  that 
whole  books  might  be  filled  with  them.  Everyone  who  is 
in  the  habit  of  being  with  dogs,  can  tell  the  most  extra- 
ordinary and  almost  incredible  facts,  showing  their  cal- 
culating perception  and  craft.*  It  is  enough  to  read  the 

* Prof.  Hinrichs  ( Das  Lcben  in  der  Natur ) thinks  that  this  animal  possesses  no 
imagination  or  perception,  because  if  it  did,  it  would  be  able  to  run  about  without 
its  master  and  might  possibly  put  up  at  an  inn.  Herr  Hinrichs  can  have  had  no 
opportunity  of  observing  dogs.  Almost  every  day  dogs  may  be  seen  running 
out  for  walks  on  their  own  account,  and  turning  into  inns  with  which  they  are 
acquainted.  In  reality,  there  is  scarcely  any  question  of  natural  philosophy  in 
which  the  unlucky  tendency  of  the  philosophic  theorist  is  seen  more  clearly  than 
in  this  question  of  the  intellectual  life  of  animals.  Facts,  however  cogent,  are 
thrown  on  one  side,  and  then  the  time-honored  philosophical  categories  are 
brought  out  with  the  conceit  imparted  by  that  little  knowledge  which  is  a dan- 
gerous thing,  and  used  to  settle  the  question  by  applying  them  to  individual  cases. 
Fortunately,  Nature  knows  nothing  of  the  subjective  fancies  of  these  learned 
gentlemen,  and  in  all  matters  of  fact  takes  no  heed1  whatever  of  theoretical  con- 
structions. Let  any  one  read,  for  instance,  the  philosophical  disquisitions  on  the 
difference  between  men  and  animals,  in  the  universally  praised  and  most  suc- 
cessful work  on  Leib  und  Seele,  first  published  in  1855  by  Herr  Julius  Schaller, 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


356 

accounts  given  by  Dujardin  of  the  intelligence  of  bees,  by 
Burdach  of  the  sagacity  of  crows,  by  Vogt  of  dolphins  and  of 
the  remarkable  way  in  which  a young  dog  was  educated  by 
an  older  one.  Or  we  may  remember  the  curious  anecdote 
of  a swallow  returning  in  the  spring  and  finding  its  nest 
taken  possession  of  by  a sparrow,  the  swallow  then  seeking 
to  turn  the  tables  on  the  recalcitrant  usurper  by  beginning 
to  stop  up  the  outlet  with  mud,  other  swallows  assisting  it 
in  doing  so,  until  the  occupant,  thoroughly  understanding 
the  fate  that  awaits  it,  knocks  its  beak  against  and  thereby 
shatters  the  wall  that  they  are  building  up  ! Who  is  not 
acquainted  with  the  wonderful  economy  existing  among  the 
communities  of  ants,  bees  and  termites,  to  which  the  present 
author  has  devoted  the  greater  part  of  his  book  on  Mind 
in  animals  ? Who  has  not  read  about  the  canine  com- 
munities in  the  North  American  prairies  ? or  about  those 
political  and  social  habits  of  the  ants  which  sound  so  fabulous, 
but  none  the  less  exist  in  reality  — how  the  ants  fight  regu- 
lar battles,  undertake  marauding  expeditions,  bring  home 
slaves  and  train  them  in  their  service,  keep  milchcows  in 
their  extensive  and  well-appointed  dwellings,  how  they 
practice  agriculture,  and  so  on  ? 

Hooker  writes  of  the  elephant,  an  animal  that  occupies 
the  highest  stage  of  mental  development:  “ The  docility 
of  these  animals  has  been  known  from  old,  but  it  loses  so 
much  by  mere  description  that  their  good-nature,  obedience 
and  intelligence  appeared  to  me  as  surprising  as  if  I had 
never  heard  or  read  anything  about  it.  Our  elephant  was  ad- 
mirable, when  not  in  a willful  humor,  and  was  so  docile 
that  at  the  word  of  command  he  would  take  up  a stone  and 
give  it  to  his  rider  with  his  trunk  over  his  head,  the  rider 
being  thus  spared  the  trouble  of  alighting  on  his  geological 
excursions.” 

a man,  by  the  way,  whose  handling  of  the  subject  contrasts  favorably  with  the 
method  that  obtains  among  scholastic  philosophers.  In  this  work  the  animal  is 
regarded  by  Herr  Schaller  as  the  mere  specimen  of  its  kind  ; man,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  an  individual  and  an  Ego.  What  answer  could  he  give,  if  the  whole 
idea  were  reversed  and  it  were  said  : The  animal  has  only  a value  as  a single 
individual,  but  man  as  man  and  as  the  representative  of  his  race? 


THE  SOUL  OF  BRUTES. 


357 

So  well  known  is  the  stupendous  sagacity  of  the  ape  — 
the  animal  that  stands  next  to  man,  although  man  is  not 
directly  descended  from,  but  only  collaterally  related  to,  the 
present  races  of  apes  — that  whole  volumes  might  be  filled 
with  the  most  wonderful  and  best  substantiated  accounts  of 
it.  The  author  of  this  book  saw  in  the  Zoological  Gardens 
of  Antwerp  an  ape,  who  had  a perfect  bed  in  his  cage,  and 
who  would  lie  down  in  it  at  night  and  cover  himself  over 
like  a human  being.  He  used  to  play  tricks  with  hoops 
and  balls  that  had  been  given  him,  and  when. playing 
would  turn  towards  the  spectators,  as  though  he  wanted  to 
talk  to  them  and  show  to  them  what  he  could  do.  This 
same  ape  had  been  observed  to  trace  with  his  finger  the 
outline  of  his  shadow  on  the  wall.  The  whole  phenomenon 
produced  a painful  expression,  as  though  a human-like, 
reflecting  and  sensitive  being  were  shut  up  there  in  a cage. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  negro,  according  to  the  excellent 
description  given  by  Burmeister,  strikingly  resembles  the 
ape  both  intellectually  and  physically.  There  is  the  same 
imitativeness  and  the  same  cowardice,  there  are,  in  point 
of  fact,  the  same  characteristic  peculiarities.  Historically, 
as  in  Haiti,  the  negro  appears,  to  borrow  a phrase  from  a 
writer  in  the  Allgemeine  Zeitung , “ half  tiger,  and  half 
ape.”  The  aborigines  of  Brazil  are  described  by  Bur- 
meister as  animals  in  their  ways  and  habits  and  as  lacking 
every  higher  mental  capacity.  “ In  the  deserts  of  the  in- 
terior of  Borneo  and  Sumatra  and  in  the  Polynesian  is- 
lands,” says  Hope,  ( Essay  on  the  Origin  of  1831) 

‘‘hordes  of  savages  wander  about,  whose  resemblance  to 
the  baboon  is  unmistakable,  and  whose  superiority  in  mind 
and  body  over  the  irrational  animal  is  scarcely  perceptible. 
They  have  little  memory,  and  still  less  power  of  imagina- 
tion. They  seem  incapable  of  reflecting  on  the  past  and 
of  providing  for  the  future.  Nothing  stirs  them  up  from 
their  apathy  except  hunger.  There  is  no  mental  faculty 
discoverable  in  them  except  the  low  animal  cunning 
usually  ascribed  to  apes.” 


/ 


358  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

It  is  often  alleged  that  the  possession  of  speech  implies  so 
characteristic  a difference  between  man  and  brute,  as  to 
leave  no  doubt  about  the  existence  of  a deep  and  impass- 
able gulf  between  them.  Those  who  urge  this  plea  must 
necessarily  be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  animals  can  speak, 
and  that  they  possess  in  a high  degree  the  power  of 
mutual  communication,  even  about  concrete  matters. 
“ How  is  it  possible  to  pretend,”  says  Broca,  ‘‘that  man 
only  possesses  the  faculty  of  speech,  and  that  it  is  wanting 
in  animals?  People  must  be  blind  not  to  see  that  animals 
are  able  to  communicate  their  thoughts  to  each  other,  by 
means  which,  though  they  may  differ  ever  so  much  from 
those  employed  by  men,  represent  none  the  less  speech  in 
its  various  forms.” 

Dujardin  placed  a saucer  with  some  sugar  in  it  in  a hole 
in  a wall,  at  some  distance  from  a bee-hive.  One  bee  having 
discovered  this  treasure,  impressed  the  nature  of  the 
locality  on  its  memory  by  flying  around  the  edges  of  the 
hole  and  pushing  against  them  with  its  head  ; it  then  flew 
away,  and  after  a little  time  returned  in  company  with  a 
number  of  its  friends,  who  quickly  made  off  with  the  sugar. 
Had  not  these  animals  spoken  to  each  other  ? How  many 
examples  prove  that  birds  especially  make  very  circum- 
stantial communications  to  each  other  ; they  agree  on  cer- 
tain plans,  hold  councils,  and  put  criminals  on  their  trial? 
The  way  in  which  the  chamois  set  their  watches  and  ap- 
prise one  another  of  an  approaching  danger,  is  a very 
plain  illustration  of  this  power  of  communication.  And 
can  this  prudence  have  been  acquired  by  instinct,  seeing 
that  chamois-hunters  are  not  as  old  as  chamois?  Many 
gregarious  animals  choose  for  themselves  a leader  and 
willingly  place  themselves  under  his  orders.  Can  this  be 
done  without  mutual  communication  ? The  way  in  which 
dogs,  wolves  and  foxes  carry  on  their  prowling  expeditions  on 
a premeditated  plan,  clearly  proves  that  a very  definite  con- 
versation, which  is  possible  only  by  an  interchange  of 
speech,  must  have  previously  taken  place  between  the  in- 


THE  SOUL  OF  BRUTES. 


359 


dividual  members  of  the  pack.  But  as  man  does  not  under- 
stand the  language  of  animals,  he  prefers  to  deny  the  ex- 
istence of  it  altogether. 

Parkyns,  an  English  traveler  in  Abyssinia,  devoted  his 
leisure  for  a long  time  to  the  observation  of  the  habits  of 
apes  and  thence  concluded  ‘ ‘ that  they  have  a language  as 
intelligible  to  them  as  ours  is  to  us.”  {Revue  Britannique .) 
‘‘The  apes,”  says  Parkyns,  ‘‘have  leaders,  whom  they 
obey  more  faithfully  than  men  usually  do  theirs,  and  they 
have  also  a regular  system  of  depredation.  When  a tribe 
leaves  the  rocky  clefts  and  descends  into  the  plains  to  rob 
a corn-field,  it  carries  along  with  it  all  its  members,  old  and 
young,  male  and  female.  The  elders  of  the  tribe  who  are 
easily  recognizable  by  their  hirsute  appearance,  are  chosen 
as  outposts.  Prior  to  descending,  they  carefully  explore 
every  ravine  and  climb  up  all  the  rocks  to  obtain  a good 
survey  of  the  district.  Sentinels  are  also  placed  on  the 
flanks  and  in  the  rear  ; and  the  watchfulness  of  these  is 
most  remarkable.  From  time  to  time  they  call  and  reply 
to  each  other,  to  announce  whether  any  danger  threatens, 
or  whether  all’s  right.  Their  cries  are  so  strident,  so 
varied  and  so  distinct,  that  in  course  of  time  they  may 
be  understood  by  listeners.  At  the  least  shout  of  alarm 
the  whole  tribe  comes  to  a standstill  and  harkens,  until  a 
second  cry,  differently  intoned,  bids  them  march  on.” 

According  to  the  observations  made  by  what  are  called 
puntsmen  in  England,  wild  ducks  hold  regular  parliaments 
and  go  in  regular  divisions.  The  ordinary  puntsman  does 
not  understand  much  more  of  their  language  than  the 
cries  of  warning  and  of  safety,  whereas  they,  like  all  ani- 
mals, have  special  expressions  for  pleasure,  pain,  hunger, 
love,  anguish  and  jealousy.  The  experienced  puntsman, 
on  the  other  hand,  knows  when  the  birds  are  talking  of  de- 
parture, rest,  danger,  security,  love,  anger,  and  so  on. 
Each  kind,  again,  has  its  own  tongue.  Prior  to  the  usual 
morning  flight  there  is  always  a very  loud  and  lively  dis- 
cussion, lasting  from  ten  to  twenty  minutes,  at  the  end  of 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


360 

which  they  all  fly  off. — It  has  been  told  of  a brooding 
goose,  who  was  ill,  that  she  went  to  another  and  cackled  to 
her,  whereupon  the  other  went  with  her  and  undertook  the 
work  of  hatching.  The  sick  one  sat  down  near  and  died 
an  hour  later. 

F.  W.  Gruner  reports  that  the  fox  has  very  decided  in- 
flections and  tones  in  his  voice.  The  dog  barks  differently 
in  joy  from  what  he  does  in  anger  and  gives  a special  ex- 
pression of  his  voice  to  each  of  his  feelings.  This  is  true 
of  almost  all  our  domestic  animals,  who  know  how  to  make 
themselves  very  well  understood  to  those  around  them  by 
the  tone  of  their  voices.  Each  animal  has  its  own  language, 
with  a number  of  definite  sounds  to  express  its  wishes, 
needs  and  emotions.  The  gesture  and  vocal  language  of 
insects  (bees,  ants,  beetles,  etc.),  consisting  in  touch  and 
pressure  with  the  antennae,  in  tapping,  chirping,  rubbing 
of  the  wing-cases,  and  so  on,  is  known  to  be  a very  com- 
prehensive and  well-developed  one. 

An  observer  has  lately  recorded  that  he  was  present  once 
in  springtime  at  a remarkable  council,  held  by  swallows. 
A pair  of  swallows  had  begun  to  build  their  nest  under  the 
roof  of  a house.  One  day  a number  of  other  swallows 
came,  and  a long  discussion  took  place  between  them  and 
the  builders  of  the  nest.  They  all  sat  together  on  the 
roof  near  the  nest  in  course  of  construction,  twittering 
and  vociferating  as  loud  as  ever  they  could.  After  this 
consultation  had  lasted  for  some  time,  and  the  nest  had 
repeatedly  been  inspected  by  several  of  the  flight,  the 
meeting  broke  up.  The  result  was  that  the  couple  de- 
serted the  nest  they  had  commenced,  and  began  building 
a new  one  in  another  part  of  the  rafters  situated  more 
favorably. 

In  Bodenstedt’s  Tagliche  Rundschau , Dr.  Julius  Hensel 
relates  a very  similar  anecdote.  In  September,  1864,  he 
saw  in  the  Hanoverian  town  of  Osterode  a young  swallow 
hanging  on  the  weathercock  of  the  church  tower,  having 
been  wedged  in  on  attempting  rather  too  bold  a flight. 


THE  SOUL  OF  BRUTES. 


361 

Flocks  of  swallows  were  vainly  endeavoring  to  succor 
their  comrade,  whose  life  hung  on  a thread.  On  the  fol- 
lowing morning,  when  the  little  thing  had  long  been  dead, 
such  numbers  of  swallows  circled  around  the  dangerous 
pinnacle  that  the  air  was  black  with  them.  The  news  had 
been  communicated  from  one  to  another,  and  they  had  come 
to  take  stock  of  the  case,  in  order  to  avoid  the  danger  for 
the  future.  Two  hours  later  the  whole  assemblage  had 
dispersed. 

Nearly  every  one  has  noticed  the  remarkable  gatherings 
which  birds  of  passage  are  in  the  habit  of  holding  in  cer- 
tain places,  one  or  more  days  before  setting  out  on  their 
journey  ; at  these  meetings  the  plan  and  arrangements  for 
the  journey  are  decided  on  by  joint  deliberations.  Far 
more  complicated  must  be  the  consultations  held  by  many 
birds,  as  for  instance  by  storks,  in  connection  with  the 
trial  of  culprits,  especially  of  those  who  have  been  guilty  of 
infringing  the  law  of  monogamy,  which  is  very  strictly 
enforced  among  many  birds.  The  author  in  his  work  on 
Leben  der  Liebe  in  der  Thierwelt  ( Erotic  Life  in  the  Ani- 
mal World),  page  69  et  seq.  has  given  full  details  of  these 
“ trials  at  law,”  as  well  as  of  the  marriages  of  birds. 

No  doubt,  some  will  say,  animals  have  a language,  but 
it  is  not  capable  of  development.  This  is  one  more  of  those 
contentions  which  are  entirely  disproved  by  reality.  Apart 
from  the  fact  that  we  neither  know  nor  can  know  anything 
definite  as  to  the  possible  or  actual  development  of  animal 
language,  since  we  do  not  understand  it,  there  are  a 
number  of  facts  and  observations  extant  which  go  a long 
way  to  show  that  the  language  of  birds,  as  represented  by 
the  voice,  the  same  as  that  embodied  in  gestures  and 
mimics,  is  undoubtedly  capable  of  a certain  development 
and  improvement.  According  to  Fuchs  ( Das  Seelenlebe?i 
der  Thiere , 1854)  there  is  an  essential  difference  between 
the  sounds  uttered  by  wild  and  those  uttered  by  domesti- 
cated  animals.  The  development  of  the  language  of  birds 
artificially  trained  to  or  imitating  speech,  such  as  parrots, 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


362 

is  so  well  known  that  it  need  only  be  cursorily  referred  to 
in  this  place.  And  if,  in  this  connection,  we  glance  at 
man,  we  must  ask  the  question,  What  development  is  the 
language  of  those  savage  races  capable  of,  of  whom 
travelers  tell  us,  that  they  speak  more  by  signs  and  ges- 
tures than  by  sounds,  and  that  even  their  sounds  resemble 
rather  the  rough  cries  and  croakings  of  animals  than  human 
articulate  speech  ? 

We  know  further  that  the  mental  capacities  of  the  ani- 
mal can  be  formed  and  brought  out  like  those  of  men,  as 
is  sufficiently  proved  by  the  olten  marvelous  results  of 
training.  That  the  education  of  animals  proceeds  slowly 
and  painfully  is  owing  less  to  their  want  of  ability  than  to 
the  difficulty  of  communicating  with  them.  In  this  the 
same  means  have  to  be  employed  — and  in  fact  are  em- 
ployed — as  are  called  for  in  the  troublesome  education  of 
the  deaf  and  dumb.  But  even  without  special  training  all 
domestic  and  tame  animals,  by  continual  intercourse  with 
man,  are  well  known  to  be  more  highly  trained  intellectu- 
ally and  to  show  more  capacity  than  in  their  state  of 
nature.  Thus  our  house-dogs  are  evolved  from  wolves  and 
jackals,  and  have  not  only  improved  most  remarkably  in 
intelligence,  but  have  also  acquired  moral  characteristics, 
such  as  affection,  conscientiousness,  fidelity,  sympathy, 
dutifulness,  temper,  etc.  Even  in  the  state  of  nature  most 
animals  change  and  improve  in  proportion  to  the  change 
in  their  surroundings,  needs,  habits,  the  fashion  of  their 
dwellings,  etc.  It  must  be  admitted  that  as  a rule  these 
changes  proceed  so  slowly,  that  they  more  or  less  escape 
our  notice.  An  exception  to  this  rule  is  made  by  the  nidi- 
fication  of  the  common  house-swallow,  as  to  which  F.  A. 
Pouchet  ( Acte s du  Museum  d'  histoire  naturelle  de  Rouen, 
tome  III,  1872)  has  proved  by  direct  comparison  that  in 
the  course  of  the  last  forty  or  fifty  years  it  has  undergone  a 
marked  improvement,  whereby  more  room  has  been  ac- 
quired for  the  young,  as  well  as  a better  protection  against 
rain  and  enemies.  The  same  observer  states  that  the 


THE  SOUL  OF  BRUTES. 


363 

European  yellow-hammer  hangs  its  nest  under  the  boughs 
of  trees  by  the  help  of  gathered  pieces  of  twine  and  thread  ; 
the  utilization  of  these  materials  has  only  become  possible 
since  the  existence  of  the  manufacturing  activity  of  man. 
“ He  who  says,”  proceeds  M.  Pouchet,  “ that  animals  are 
mere  unchangeable  machines,  shows  that  he  has  never  ob- 
served any  of  them.  If  they  are  only  machines,  the  most 
superficial  observation  of  the  smallest  among  them  proves 
that  these  machines  observe,  compare  and  judge,  or,  in 
other  words,  they  possess  all  the  faculties  of  reason.” 

That  the  reason  of  man  alone  is  capable  of  training  and 
progress  by  virtue  of  an  interior  or  spontaneous  tendency, 
while  the  intelligence  of  animals  would  forever  remain 
stationary  without  the  stimulus  imparted  to  it  by  man,  is  a 
contention  (as  proved  by  the  examples  already  mentioned) 
which  is  neither  perfectly  accurate,  nor  in  any  way  fitted  to 
form  an  essential  difference  between  the  minds  of  animals 
and  men.  For  it  is  well  known  that  the  reason  of  the  lowest 
races  of  mankind  does  not  manifest  this  internal  tendency, 
and  that  there  is  no  personal  or  independent  history  of  the 
civilization  of  those  races  ; even  the  human  race,  considered 
as  a whole,  has  as  we  have  already  shown,  needed  immeasur- 
able spaces  of  time  in  comparison  with  the  historic  period, 
in  order  to  acquire  this  tendency. 

That  a gradual  transition,  passing  through  countless  in- 
termediate gradations,  exists  between  man  and  animals, 
both  in  mental  and  corporeal  characteristics,  can  only  be 
denied  by  those  who  insist  upon  setting  their  own  opinion 
above  facts.  All  the  well-known  marks  of  distinction  which 
have  been  put  forward  with  the  view  of  establishing  a 
sharp  line  of  demarcation,  are,  as  we  have  repeatedly  re- 
marked, but  relative  and  not  absolute  in  their  nature.* 

* In  the  comparison  so  often  instituted  between  men  and  animals  the  blunder  is 
always  made  of  placing  the  civilized  European  and  some  wild  and  barely  known 
animal  in  juxtaposition  ; the  correct  way  of  drawing  a parallel  would  be  by  ex- 
amining the  extreme  borders  of  humanity  and  the  transitional  stages.  Professor 
Kolliker,  in  the  above-mentioned  work  on  the  Darwinian  theory,  makes  the  fol- 
lowing strictures  on  this  fallacious  method  : “ If  the  civilized  Indo-European  is 


force  and  matter. 


364 

And  how  could  it  be  otherwise?  Nature  is  one  whole 
thing,  spreading  in  every  direction  in  an  unbroken  inter- 
dependence and  knowing  of  no  absolute  boundaries  and 
divisions  ; for  lines  of  demarcations  have  only  been  set  up 
by  the  systematizing  human  intellect.  Man  has,  therefore, 
no  right  to  set  himself  above  the  rest  of  the  organic  world, 
and  to  consider  himself  as  a being  of  a distinct  and  higher 
nature  : on  the  contrary,  he  should  recognize  the  firm  and 
indissoluble  couplings,  which  tie  him  to  nature.  His  be- 
ginnings and  his  endings  are  identical  to  those  of  everything 
else  that  lives  and  grows. 

“The  old  view,”  says  the  author  of  Menschen  und 
Dinge , Mittheilungen  aus  dem  Tagebuche  eines  reisenden 
Naturforschers , 1855,  “ that  man  alone  is  endowed  with 
reason  and  intellect,  and  that  between  him  and  the  animals 
there  exists  an  impassable  gulf,  has  not  a little  contributed 
to  hiding  from  us  for  such  a long  time  and  so  completely 
the  psychological  aspect  of  the  animal  world.  . . When 
this  error  has  once  been  cast  aside.  . . and  when  the  idea 
shall  once  have  prevailed  that  not  only  from  a physical,  but 
also  from  a moral  and  intellectual  point  of  view,  the  ani- 
mal world  is  a man  in  fragments , then  a comparative 
psychology  will  arise  as  a parallel  to  the  comparative 
anatomy  which  we  have  gradually  formed.” 

Fr.  Friedrich  remarks  very  forcibly  and  cogently:-- 
“ Not  to  recognize  the  position  which  animals  occupy 
towards  man  and  in  the  great  whole  of  Nature  is  at  the 
present  day  a sign  of  injustice  and  obtuseness.  He  who 

compared  with  the  highest  mammalian  brute, 'the  gap  is  found  great  not  only  intel- 
lectually, but  also  physically,  and  a horror  is  then  felt  at  the  idea  that  man  and 
certain  animals,  such  as  the  higher  apes,  should  stand  in  any'  genetic  relationship. 
But  if  we  take  the  red  prognathous  New-Hollander  or  Bushman,  whose  body  may 
almost  be  termed  brute-like,  and  whose  intellectual  life  is  of  the  lowest  grade,  the 
gap  appears  by  no  means  so  great,  and  the  comparison  and  juxtaposition  of  such 
a creature  with  ourselves  is  by  no  means  flattering.  And  who  can  assure  us  that 
the  anthropoid  apes  now  known,  such  as  the  gorilla,  chimpanzee  and  ourang, 
were  really  the  mammals  most  like  the  human  race  which  have  existed,  or  that  in 
earlier  times  there  were  not  men  more  savage  and  lower  than  are  known  at  this 
day?  ” 


THE  SOUL  OF  BRUTES. 


365 

denies  their  intellectual  and  psychical  qualities,  shows  that 
his  understanding  of  nature  reaches  no  further  than  the 
range  of  his  physical  vision,  and  that  he  is  unqualified  to 
give  a judgment  on  intellectual  powers.” 

Professor  B.  Cotta  relates  a remarkable  incident,  first  ob- 
served by  Darwin,  about  a species  of  crabs  inhabiting  the 
Keeling  Islands.  These  crabs  open  cocoanuts  in  a pe- 
culiar fashion  with  their  curiously  formed  claws,  and  having 
done  so,  eat  the  kernels.  This  proceeding  is  urged  in 
favor  of  the  theory  of  a special  innate  instinct,  and  the 
teller  of  the  story  seems  inclined  to  perceive  in  the  method 
referred  to  a particular  proof  of  the  supreme  wisdom  of  the 
creator,  who  must  have  formed  for  this  special  object  an 
animal  fitted  for  it  ! It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  a natu- 
ralist can  come  to  such  a conclusion,  and  the  irrationality 
of  this  way  of  looking  at  things  has  already  been  partly 
exposed.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  animal  had  tried 
experiments  in  the  matter  and  specially  in  cocoanuts, 
before  it  arrived  at  the  idea  of  using  its  claws  in  that 
fashion,  and  that  the  complete  evolution  of  the  now  existing 
conditions  came  about  finally  by  natural  selection.  To  see 
anything  else  in  it,  and  to  imagine  that  that  crab  was  made 
a present  of  its  peculiar  claw  apparatus  in  order  that  it 
might  crack  cocoanuts,  is  a manifest  absurdity.  We 
might  as  well  say  that  noses  existed  for  the  sake  of  spec- 
tacles, or  that  man  being  created  in  order  that  he  might 
travel  on  railways,  built  locomotives  by  instinct  and  re- 
ceived legs  in  order  that  he  might  step  into  carriages. 


Free  Will 


Man  is  as  free  as  a bird  in  a cage  ; he  can  move  within  certain  limits.— Lav ater. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  a free  will  or  voluntary  act,  independent  of  the  totality 
of  the  influences  which  in  each  individual  moment  guide  men  and  keep  even 
the  strongest  within  bounds.— Moleschott. 

How  foolish  is  the  idle  conceit  of  an  absolute  freedom  of  the  human  will,  seeing 
that  it  is  completely  ruled  by  the  tendencies  to  self-preservation  which  Nature 
has  implanted  in  the  human  bosom.— A.  H.  Schneider. 

To  understand  all  is  to  pardon  all.— Mme.  de  Stael. 

SINCE  man,  as  we  have  proved  in  the  foregoing 
chapters,  is  a product  of  all-creating  Nature,  both  in 
his  physical  and  his  psychical  being,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  not  only  what  he  is,  but  also  what  he  wants, 
does,  feels  and  thinks,  depends  on  purely  natural  inter- 
connections and  on  necessities  of  nature,  like  the  whole 
fabric  of  the  universe.  None  but  a superficial  and  ignorant 
contemplation  of  man  and  of  human  existence,  superadded 
to  spiritualistic  and  metaphysical  prejudices,  could  ever  in- 
duce the  idea  that  the  actions  either  of  an  individual  or  of 
nations  are  the  outcome  and  expression  of  a perfectly  free 
and  self-conscious  will.  On  the  contrary,  if  we  go  to 
greater  depths  in  our  searches,  we  are  taught  that  the  con- 
nection of  the  general  definiteness  of  nature  and  of  natural 
influences  with  individual  idiosyncrasy  is  so  close  and  in- 
frangible that  we  can  only  speak  of  volition  and  free 
decision  in  a very  limited  sense  ; we  are  taught  of  settled 
laws  and  rules  in  all  the  phenomena  which  we  have  hitherto 
looked  upon  as  the  products  of  mere  chance  or  of  self- 
acting spontaneity.  “The  human  freedom,  of  which  all 

(366) 


FREE  WILL. 


367 

boast,  ’ ’ says  the  great  thinker  Spinoza,  ‘ ‘ consists  in  nought 
but  that  men  are  conscious  of  their  own  will,  while  ignorant 
of  the  causes  which  have  induced  it.” 

The  science  of  statistics,  which  has  only  been  turned  to 
proper  account  in  modern  times,  has  the  great  honor  of 
having  proved  the  existence  of  definite  rules  in  a number 
of  phenomena,  which  had  hitherto  been  looked  upon  as 
purely  accidental  or  as  owing  their  origin  to  an  arbitrary 
power.  If,  for  instance,  statistics  prove  that  under  identi- 
cally the  same  circumstances  almost  the  same  number  of 
murders,  of  suicides,  of  thefts,  or  of  marriages,  take  place 
within  a certain  time,  we  cannot  but  feel  compelled  to  sub- 
stitute a rule  of  some  kind  of  natural  predetermination  for 
the  apparently  accidental  or  arbitrary  nature  of  such  acts. 

It  is  only  in  concentrating  our  attention  upon  individual 
and  minor  facts  that  we  are  apt  to  lose  our  hold  on  the 
major  ones  by  which  we  may  recognize  this  rule,  while  only 
an  aggregate  survey  of  Nature  and  its  phenomena  enables 
us  to  understand  the  order  of  things  which,  in  a measure, 
inexorably  sways  humanity  and  man.  And  thus  it  may  be 
said  without  exaggeration  that  in  the  perennial  contention 
about  the  freedom  of  the  human  will,  the  vast  majority  of 
doctors  and  practical  psychologists  lean  to  the  side  of  those 
who  recognize  that  all  human  actions  are  everywhere  de- 
pendent in  the  last  resort  on  the  fixed  necessities  of  nature 
or  on  external  and  internal  influences,  and  that  in  each  in- 
dividual instance  there  remains  only  a very  small  scope,  and 
oftentimes  no  scope  at  all,  for  free  volition. 

It  is  impossible  for  us  to  deal  in  this  place  exhaustively 
with  the  great  truth  just  referred  to,  which  is  so  necessary 
to  the  recognition  of  the  existence  of  a natural  order  of 
things  in  the  Universe  ; for  if  we  wanted  to  do  so,  we 
should  have  to  take  in  almost  the  whole  range  of  human 
knowledge  and  thought.  We  must,  therefore,  confine 
ourselves  to  referring  to  certain  leading  points  by  which 
the  possibility  of  such  demonstration  may  be  readily  per- 
ceived. 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


368 

There  are  three  main  groups  of  influences  which  more  or 
less  control  the  will  of  man,  and  which  set  certain  definite 
limits  to  his  actions. 

The  first  and  most  powerful  of  these  influences  resides  in 
the  individual  organization  of  each  person,  and  in  his 
physical  and  moral  tendencies,  impulses,  inclinations  and 
characteristics  which  are  mostly  inherited  from  parents  and 
ancestors  ; these  are  forces  which,  according  to  experience, 
work  so  powerfully  on  man’s  actions  that  little  or  no  room 
is  left  for  free  choice. 

The  second  influence  is  the  force  of  training,  education 
and  example,  acting  upon  the  innate  character,  and  pro- 
ducing thereon  sometimes  a beneficial,  and  sometimes  a 
deleterious  effect,  but  in  each  instance  reducing  man’s  free 
choice  to  its  narrowest  limits. 

The  third  influence  lies  in  the  external  circumstances  ol 
life  and  in  the  action  of  the  surroundings  or  media  within 
which  each  individual  man  does  and  must  move.  In  the 
most  superficial  sense  we  reckon  among  these  media  : 
country,  climate,  natural  conditions  in  general,  also  manners 
and  customs,  social  and  political  circumstances,  stages  of 
civilization  and  knowledge,  peculiarities  of  character,  the 
style  of  feeding  and  living  in  use  among  the  people,  nation 
or  race  to  which  the  individual  belongs  ; lastly,  the  special 
personal  circumstances  by  which  everyone  living  in  the 
midst  of  a community  is  effected  in  the  same  way  as  he  is 
by  general  circumstances.  These  are  : health,  nutrition, 
wealth  or  poverty,  abundance  or  privation,  social  position, 
happiness  or  misery,  and  so  on. 

Galton  (. London  Journal  of  the  Royttl  Geogr.  Soc.,  vol. 
XXII)  relates  : “ The  difference  of  the  moral  character  and 
the  physical  constitution  of  the  various  tribes  of  South 
Africa  is  connected  with  the  nature,  soil  and  vegetation  of 
their  dwelling  places.  The  arid  inland  steppes,  that  are 
covered  only  with  thick  jungles  and  low  brushwood,  breed 
dwarfish  sinewy  Bushmen  ; in  the  open,  hilly,  undulating 
pasture  land  we  fine  the  Dammaras,  a nation  of  independent 


FREE  WILL. 


3^9 

shepherds,  amongst  whom  each  head  of  a family  is  lord 
paramount  within  his  own  circle ; on  the  rich  crown-land 
of  the  north,  on  the  contrary,  we  meet  with  the  most 
civilized  and  progressive  race,  theOvampos.”  According 
to  Desor,  the  histories,  customs,  and  manners  of  the 
American  Indian  tribes,  whom  he  distinguishes  as  Prairie 
and  Forest  Indians,  may  be  easily  traced  back  to  the  dif- 
ferences existing  between  the  various  descriptions  of  soil 
they  inhabit.  The  desert,  to  quote  Karl  Muller’s  ex- 
pression, has  changed  the  Bedouin  who  inhabits  it,  to  a 
“cat,”  and  according  to  General  Daumas,  the  motto  of 
those  faithless  dwellers  of  the  desert  is  : ‘ ‘ Kiss  the  dog  on 
his  mouth,  till  you  have  got  what  you  want  of  him.”  In 
their  arid  and  sandy  home,  which  never  yielded  them  any- 
thing but  a bare  existence,  the  Arabs  have  ever  remained 
a crude,  uncivilized  people,  no  better  than  migratory 
savages.  But  look  at  the  change  that  was  wrought  in 
them,  when  they  had  conquered  Persia,  Spain  and  India  ! 
and  what  a difference  in  breeding  and  national  character  is 
perceptible  between  the  rich  lands  of  the  Nile,  the  seat  of 
a civilization  as  ancient  as  it  is  wonderful,  and  the  desert 
immediately  adjacent  thereto  ! Again,  some  two  or  three 
hundred  years  ago,  the  first  colonists  reached  New  Eng- 
land, true  Englishmen  in  every  respect  ; but  what  a change 
has  come  over  them  since  then,  by  the  mere  influence  of 
changed  soil  and  climate  ! Spareness  of  body,  and  dry 
yellow  skin,  long  straight  hair,  long  necks  and  elongation 
of  all  long  bones,  especially  of  those  of  the  upper  extremi- 
ties, together  with  less  development  of  the  glandular 
system,  deep-set  eyes,  and  so  on,  make  the  Yankee  as  a 
rule  distinguishable  at  a glance  from  the  natural  born 
Englishman.  Perhaps  the  restless  and  almost  feverish 
excitability  of  his  character  and  habits,  which  partially  ac- 
counts for  the  rapid  and  gigantic  growth  of  the  American 
commonwealth,  is  in  some  way  connected  with  the  ex- 
cessive dryness  of  the  air  ; and  it  has  also  been  noticed 
that  during  the  prevalence  of  the  north-westerly  winds, 


370 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


which  lose  all  their  dampness  on  their  passage  through  the 
vast  American  continent,  the  irritability  of  the  inhabitants 
of  America  is  strikingly  on  the  increase.  But  even  more 
striking  than  the  changes  just  mentioned  are  those  under- 
gone by  the  English  in  Australia,  more  particularly  in 
New  South  Wales.  The  character  of  the  native  Britain 
bears  impressed  upon  it  his  damp,  cloudy  sky,  the  heavy 
atmosphere  and  insularity  of  his  home,  while  on  the  other 
hand  the  very  character  of  the  Italian  beams,  as  it  were, 
with  the  rays  of  his  glowing  sun  and  is  marked  with  the 
impress  of  his  ever  blue  sky.  The  Oriental’s  world  of 
fantastic  thoughts  and  fables  is  in  a measure  the  outcome 
of  the  luxuriant  and  exuberant  fullness  of  the  nature  that 
surrounds  him.  In  countries  in  which  earthquakes,  wild 
beasts,  hurricanes,  storms,  insecurity  of  life,  of  health  and 
of  wealth  and  like  circumstances  react  upon  the  character 
of  the  inhabitants,  superstition  and  want  of  courage  are 
rife,  and  the  imagination  is  developed  to  an  excess  at  the 
cost  of  the  intellect.  Conversely,  in  the  Far  North,  in 
which  all  nature  seems  congealed  by  cold  blasts  adding  to 
the  chill  and  torpor  of  an  icy  atmosphere,  which  seems 
more  fit  to  destroy  than  to  create  life,  we  find  but  scanty 
bushes,  dwarfed  trees,  and  a diminutive  race  of  men  barely 
adapted  for  civilization.  Only  where  climate,  soil,  and  the 
external  conditions  of  the  earth’s  surface  keep  up  a certain 
medium  or  equilibrium,  as  they  do  in  Europe,  can  man 
rise  to  that  stage  of  intellectual  and  moral  civilization, 
which  gives  to  the  European  so  great  a superiority  over 
all  the  other  races  of  the  globe. 

The  French  scientist  Tremaux  ( Revue  contemp.  1864, 
pages  381 — 384)  quotes  numerous  examples  taken  from 
popular  traditions,  and  going  to  show  that  apart  from  the 
influence  of  climate,  quite  a definite  relation  exists  between 
the  geological  formation  of  the  soil  and  the  character  and 
mental  type  of  the  nations  dwelling  thereon.  The  inferior 
race,  says  M.  Tremaux,  always  belongs  to  the  older  forma- 
tions and  the  less  favored  climate,  whereas  the  superior 


FREE  WILL, 


37 1 

face  always  inhabits  a land  which  has  undergone  a greater 
change  in  a comparatively  narrow  space  and  consequently 
belongs  to  the  more  recent  formations.  If  a people  (or  an 
animal)  come  to  live  in  another  country  and  under  other 
conditions  of  life,  it  changes  for  the  better  if  the  new  soil  be 
more  recent,  and  for  the  worse  if  it  be  more  ancient,  than 
the  one  they  originally  lived  on.  A new  soil  breeds  a new 
being  or  a new  species  — that  is  the  ratio?iale  of  M.  Trem- 
aux’s  investigations.* 

No  less  than  soil  and  climate,  do  political  and  social  con- 
ditions exert  a powerful  influence  on  the  character,  and 
thence  on  the  actions,  of  nations  as  well  as  individuals  ; of 
this,  history  and  popular  traditions  afford  us  countless  ex- 
amples. When  ruled  by  despotism,  as  in  so  many  Eastern 
countries,  men  become  hypocritical,  submissive  slaves,  desti- 
tute of  a sense  of  honor  and  dignity,  who  do  everything  to 
please  their  rulers  ; while  in  a Republic  or  a free  State  they 
learn  to  respect  themselves,  and  develop  virtues  to  which  they 
were  previously  strangers.  The  same  Romans  who,  in  the 
days  of  the  Republic,  exhibited  such  great  Republican 
virtues  and  such  an  exemplary  sense  of  modesty  and  de- 
corum, actually  gloried,  in  the  days  of  the  Empire,  in  being 
permitted  to  offer  their  wives  and  daughters  to  the  lusts  of 
their  ruler  and  of  his  creatures,  and  Rome  became  a place 
full  of  nauseous  vice  and  fetid  depravity.  Great  and  stirring 
times  breed  numbers  of  great  men  and  wonderful  characters 
who  fill  history  with  their  fame  ; whilst  in  petty,  stagnant 
periods  every  spirit  seems  dead,  and  every  noble  action 
impossible. 

Now  just  as  nations  as  a whole  are  dependent  for  their 
history  and  characteristics  on  the  external  conditions  of 
Nature  and  the  internal  ones  of  Society  under  which  they 
have  grown  up,  thus  is  the  individual  man  no  less  a pro- 

* For  further  information  on  the  influence  of  the  environment  (soil,  climate,  etc.) 
on  Man  see  A.  von  Humboldt,  Ansichten  der  Natur O.  Uhle  in  the  journal 
Natur}  1874  ; Buckle,  History  of  Civilization  in  England , Introduction  ; Cabanis, 
Sur  les  supports  du  physique  et  du  moral  de  Vhomme,  1798  till  1815. 


37  2 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


duct  and  a sum  total  of  external  and  internal  natural  forces, 
not  merely  in  his  entire  physical  and  moral  being,  but  also 
in  each  single  department  of  his  activity.  This  activity  de- 
pends first  and  foremost  on  his  whole  mental  individuality 
and  special  characteristics.  But  what  is  this  individuality 
which  acts  so  decisively  on  man,  and  in  each  single  instance, 
quite  apart  from  additional  external  forces,  fixes  his  line  of 
conduct  within  such  narrow  bounds  as  only  to  leave  an  ex- 
ceedingly small  scope  for  the  exercise  of  his  free  will  ? what 
is  this  individuality  but  the  necessary  product  of  innate 
physical  and  mental  qualities,  in  connection  with  training, 
teaching,  example,  custom,  rank,  fortune,  sex,  nationality, 
climate,  soil,  conditions  of  time  and  of  living,  and  so  on? 
Man  is  subject  to  the  same  law  as  every  plant  and  every 
animal  — a law,  with  the  clearly  defined  features  of  which 
we  have  already  met  in  the  primitive  world.  As  the  plant 
depends  for  its  existence,  its  size,  form  and  beauty  upon 
the  ground  in  which  it  is  rooted  ; as  the  animal,  great  or 
small  or  large,  wild  or  domesticated,  beautiful  or  hideous, 
is  the  creature  of  the  external  conditions  under  which  it 
has  grown  up  ; as  an  entozoon  ever  changes  as  it  passes 
into  the  interior  of  another  animal  ; thus  each  man  is  no  less 
a product  of  similar  external  circumstances,  accidents, 
and  arrangements,  and  can  therefore  by  no  means  be  set 
down  as  such  a mentally  independent  being  endowed  with 
a free  will,  as  moralists  and  philosophers  are  in  the  habit 
of  presenting  him.  He  who  brings  with  him  into  the  world 
an  innate  tendency  to  benevolence,  compassion,  con- 
scientiousness, love  of  justice,  and  so  on,  is  in  most 
instances  cut  out  for  a good  moralist,  supposing  that  bad 
training  or  adverse  conditions  of  life  do  not  forcibly  subdue 
that  tendency  ; whilst  on  the  other  hand  a congenital  pro- 
clivity to  melancholy,  or  indolence,  or  frivolity,  or  vanity, 
or  arrogance,  or  avarice,  or  sensuality,  or  intemperance, 
or  gambling,  or  violence,  can,  as  a rule,  be  neither  con- 
trolled nor  checked  by  any  kind  of  will  or  imagination.  In 
point  of  fact,  daily  experience  proves  conclusively  that 


FREE  WILL. 


373 

each  person  generally  acts  in  the  manner  most  suited  to  his 
nature  and  individual  character  ; these  inborn  or  inherited 
tendencies  and  leanings  of  our  nature  mostly  exercise  over 
our  resolutions  and  actions  an  influence  in  comparison  with 
which  all  other  motives,  especially  those  of  reflection  or  re- 
ligious belief,  recede  more  or  less  into  the  background. 
“The  actions  of  men,”  says  Auerbach’s  Baumann,  “are 
independent  of  what  they  believe  about  God  ; they  are 
only  prompted  by  inward  inspirations  or  habits.” 

How  often  does  it  happen  that  a man  knows  himself  and 
his  mental  and  peculiar  characteristics  sufficiently  well  to 
see  what  faults  he  is  likely  to  commit,  and  yet  is  unable  to 
successfully  resist  this  internal  pressure.  He  repeats  the 
same  faults  over  and  over  again  and  gets  again  and  again 
into  the  same  scrapes  ; for  it  is  quite  an  exception  for  the 
powers  of  imagination  and  thought  to  gain  the  victory  over 
a man’s  perceptive  faculties  and  appetites.  The  youthful 
man  or  the  sensualist,  as  a rule,  sacrifices  everything  to  his 
erotic  passion,  the  older  man  or  the  covetous  and  avari- 
cious character  panders  only  to  his  acquisitiveness  ; the 
sluggard  is  only  prompted  by  his  inertia  and  his  dislike  of 
work,  the  ambitious  man  by  his  desire  for  honor  and  dis- 
tinction ; a mother  by  the  love  for  her  children,  and  so  on. 
The  miser  who  has  already  amassed  millions,  still  goes  no 
hoarding  to  his  dying  day,  knowing  all  the  while  that  his 
heaped-up  wealth  will  benefit  neither  himself  nor  others. 
Innate  passion  is  deaf  to  all  reasoning  ; it  listens  to  no 
rational  arguments,  and  forgets  every  danger  and  every 
consideration.  No  man  can  master  inborn  timidity  or 
nervousness  by  the  mere  power  of  his  will,  and  inherited 
irresoluteness  or  weakness  of  decision  may  become  the 
grave  of  the  most  promising  resolutions  and  actions.  A 
man  of  violent  temper,  while  in  a rage,  commits  acts  of 
which  he  would  deem  himself  incapable  in  quieter  moments. 
A compassionate  and  good-natured  man  sacrifices  himself 
and  his  own  interests  for  the  good  of  others,  while  no  im- 
passioned pleadings,  no  scenes  of  misery,  and  no  horrors  of 


374 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


hell  can  move  the  spirit  of  the  hard-hearted.  Vanity,  love 
of  approbation  or  desire  of  fame  may  become  the  cause  of 
the  greatest  crimes  or  the  most  preposterous  actions,  but 
according  to  circumstances  they  may  also  lead  to  the 
noblest  fruits  of  life. 

All  these  qualities,  tendencies  or  propensities,  which  are 
sometimes  inherited  and  sometimes  acquired,  are  so  power- 
ful in  human  nature,  that,  as  we  remarked  heretofore,  re- 
flection can  form  but  a small  check  upon  them,  and  religion 
scarcely  any.  We  always  notice  that  man  delights  most 
and  encounters  least  difficulty  in  following  his  nature,  or 
the  path  which  to  him  seems  the  pleasantest.  We  help  a suf- 
ferer, not  because  the  laws  of  morality  command  it,  but  be- 
cause we  are  prompted  to  do  so  by  compassion  or  because 
we  instinctively  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  the  sufferer, 
and  do  to  him  what  in  a parallel  case  we  would  ask  or  expect 
others  to  do  for  us.  “Good,”  says  L.  Feuerbach,  “is 
that  which  is  agreeable  and  suited  to  man  ; bad  or  evil  is 
that  which  clashes  with  his  nature.” 

But  not  only  does  man’s  intrinsic  nature,  as  a rule,  tell 
him  how  he  is  to  act,  not  only  are  his  actions  the  neces- 
sary outcome  of  his  whole  individuality,  but  in  every  single 
moment,  and  in  each  individual  act,  powerful  influences  of 
nature  are  at  play  which  shorten,  as  it  were,  the  tether  of 
his  free-will.  Who  does  not  know  how  powerfully  atmos- 
pheric influences  act  on  our  ordinary  mental  disposition, 
and  thence  on  our  resolves,  and  where  is  the  man  who  has 
not  made  such  an  observation  on  himself?  Our  resolves 
vary  with  the  barometer,  and  a number  of  things  which  we 
think  we  have  done  by  free  will,  were  perhaps  only  the  re- 
sult of  accidental  or  transitory  influences.  Personal  physical 
conditions  also  exercise  an  almost  irresistible  influence  on 
our  mental  disposition  and  resolutions.  ‘ ‘ The  young  man,  ’ ’ 
says  Krahmer,  “ has  other  ideas  than  the  old  ; a man  in  a 
recumbent  position  thinks  differently  from  one  standing  up  ; 
the  hungry  man  looks  at  things  in  a different  light  from  the 
well-fed  one,  and  the  man  in  a happy  frame  of  mind  takes 


FREE  WILL. 


375 

very  different  views  from  one  who  is  irritated  and  sulky.” 
The  vast  influences  which  may  be,  and  in  fact  are,  exercised 
on  human  thoughts  and  actions  by  the  manifold  sufferings  of 
the  various  bodily  organs  are  too  generally  known  to  re- 
quire mentioning  in  this  place,  especially  as  they  have  been 
to  some  extent  dealt  with  in  an  earlier  chapter.  Times  out 
of  number  have  the  most  horrible  crimes  been  called  forth 
by  such  abnormal  bodily  conditions,  and  without  the  will 
of  the  perpetrator.  Not  until  our  own  days  has  science 
commenced  to  cast  a piercing  glance  into  the  hidden  re- 
cesses of  these  remarkable  conditions,  and  looked  for  a 
state  of  disease  in  cases  in  which  heretofore  no  doubt  had 
been  entertained  of  the  presence  of  free-will. 

Thus,  no  one  who  looks  deeper  into  things  can  deny 
that  if  there  be  a free  will  in  man,  it  can,  both  in  theory 
and  in  practice,  exist  only  in  very  narrow  limits,  and  that 
as  the  anonymous  author  of  the  admirable  work  on  the 
idea  of  God  (Nordlingen,  1856)  remarks,  “our  whole  life, 
like  our  whole  organism,  is  a compound  of  necessity  and 
freedom.”  Man  is  free,  but  his  hands  are  bound.  He 
cannot  go  beyond  a definite  boundary  set  by  Nature,  while 
within  this  boundary  represented  by  natural  laws,  he 
doubtless  enjoys  sufficient  free  scope  so  long  as  more  sen- 
sible views  get  the  better  of  less  sensible  ones,  or  reason 
and  reflection  gain  the  day  in  their  struggle  with  innate  or 
accustomed  tendencies  and  appetites,  or  mere  impulses  of 
the  moment.  The  more  highly  a man  is  intellectually  de- 
veloped and  trained,  the  stronger  is  his  will  and  the  greater 
his  responsibility.  On  the  contrary,  his  responsibility  be- 
comes less  in  proportion  as  the  power  of  reason  and 
reflection  is  less  able  to  contend  against  the  base  or  invol- 
untary tendencies  of  the  human  soul.  Hence  the  vast 
majority  of  those  who  offend  against  the  laws  of  the  State 
and  of  Society  ought  to  be  looked  upon  rather  as  unfortu- 
nates who  deserve  pity  than  as  objects  of  execration.  It  is 
in  evidence  that  by  far  the  greatest  number  of  all  crimes 
against  the  State  or  against  Society  may  be  traced  to  pas- 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


376 

sion  or  ignorance,  being  the  outcome  of  want  of  education 
or  of  weakness  of  the  reflective  faculties.  The  educated 
man  finds  means  and  ways  of  meeting  an  unendurable  con- 
dition and  of  getting  out  of  its  way,  without  coming  into 
conflict  with  the  existing  law  ; the  uneducated  knows  not 
how  to  help  himself  except  by  crime  ; he  is  the  victim  of 
the  circumstances  in  which  he  is  placed.  What  is  the  good 
of  free  will  to  him  who,  from  necessity  or  acting  under  the 
impulse  of  the  irresistible  tendency  of  self-preservation, 
lies,  steals,  robs,  and  murders  ? To  what  extent  can  a man 
be  held  accountable  for  his  actions  whose  destructiveness 
and  whose  leaning  towards  cruelty  are  great,  while  his 
powers  of  reason  are  small?  Want  of  understanding, 
poverty,  and  want  of  education,  these  are  the  three  princi- 
pal sources  from  which  crime  springs.  The  philosopher 
Plato  was  in  his  time  keen -sighted  enough  to  say  : “ Crime 
has  its  foundation  in  the  want  of  education,  and  in  the  bad 
♦raining  and  arrangements  of  the  State.”  And  the  able 
author  of  the  Principles  of  Social  Science  quoted  hereto- 
fore remarks  : — " Neither  in  crime  nor  in  madness  is  there 
anything  strange  or  extraordinary.  Both  arise  from  settled 
and  definite  causes,  which  are  just  as  accessible  to  our  in- 
vestigation as  the  laws  of  natural  philosophy,  except  that 
the  human  mind  is  harder  to  understand,  on  account  of  its 
greater  complexity  ....  It  is  a truth  that  each  one  of  us 
would  become  criminal  or  mad,  if  he  were  placed  in  con- 
ditions favorable  thereto.” 

That  the  juxtaposition  ol  crime  and  madness  implied  in 
these  words  rests  on  no  exaggeration,  is  proved  by  many 
recent  medical  researches.  These  researches  have  proved 
in  the  case  of  many  criminals,  if  not  of  all,  that  from  the 
very  first  they  have  been,  as  it  were,  doomed  or  predes- 
tined to  crime  by  a faulty  or  imperfect  organization  of  mind 
and  body.  The  researches  of  Saure  (Ami.  med.  psychl)  on 
the  causes  of  mental  derangements  in  prisons,  show  that 
there  exists  the  greatest  analogy  between  insane  persons 
and  a certain  class  of  prisoners,  consisting  of  persons  of 


FREE  WILL. 


377 


imperfect  organization  ; according  to  him  a portion  of  the 
inmates  of  prisons  ought  rather  to  be  placed  in  lunatic 
asylums ! According  to  the  same  authority,  the  number 
of  lunatics  convicted  by  criminal  courts  is  very  large,  even 
in  this  nineteenth  century  of  ours.  Professor  Benedikt  of 
Vienna  has  arrived  at  a similar  result  ; having  had  an  op- 
portunity of  studying  the  formation  of  the  brain  of  a 
number  of  persons  convicted  of  very  serious  crimes,  he 
pronounces  it  to  have  been  defective  in  every  one  of  them. 
More  especially  were  the  important  convolutions  of  the  sur- 
face of  the  brain  developed  to  a strikingly  diminutive  de- 
gree, and  the  posterior  cerebral  lobes,  the  seat  of  emotion 
and  of  moral  sensitiveness,  were  so  deficient  in  development 
and  so  dwarfed  as  actually  to  leave  part  of  the  cerebellum 
bare.  Professor  Benedikt  holds  madness  and  crime  to  be 
twins,  and  is  of  opinion  that  no  criminal  acts  to  more  than 
a very  limited  extent  from  his  own  moral  freedom  and  self- 
control.  ( Bericht  liber  die  Naturforscher-  Versammlung 
in  Graz , 1875.) 

The  same  conclusion  has  been  arrived  at  by  Dr.  Bordier 
of  Paris.  Having  examined  the  brains  of  thirty-six  executed 
criminals,  he  found  that  in  almost  all  of  them  the  parietal 
lobes  were  excessively  developed  at  the  cost  of  the  frontal,  a 
fact  which  points  to  a low  grade  of  intelligence  together  with 
a stronger  tendency  to  violence.  This  is  also  the  general  con- 
dition of  the  brains  of  pre-historic  men,  so  that  its  occur- 
rence at  the  present  day  may  be  regarded  in  each  instance  as 
a case  of  atavism  or  individual  reversion  to  the  state  of  former 
barbarism.  Perfectly  normal  brains,  according  to  the  ob- 
server referred  to,  are  very  rare  among  criminals.  In  most 
of  them  are  found  asymmetry,  prematurely  ossified  sutures, 
remains  of  old  inflammation  of  the  cerebral  envelopes,  an 
excessive  fullness  of  blood  in  the  vessels  of  the  vertexrof  the 
cranium,  and  so  on. 

Among  the  recent  researches  of  this  subject  are  those  of 
Dr.  Flesch  ( Untersuchungen  iiber  Verbrecher-  Gehirne, 
Wurzburg,  1882),  who  has  come  to  conclusions  which  make 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


378 

the  behavior  of  these  unfortunates  appear  to  us  in  a light 
very  different  from  that  in  which  it  is  usual  to  regard  crimi- 
nal actions.  All  the  facts  brought  to  light  go  to  show  that 
many  criminals  are  simply  unfortunates,  afflicted  with  in- 
sanity, partly  in  an  incipient  and  partly  in  an  acute  state 
of  development. 

“Hence,”  says  G.  Forster,  “we  should  do  best  in 
neither  judging  nor  condemning  anyone.”  And  hence  also 
in  a few  centuries,  when  men  shall  have  grown  better,  wiser 
and  happier  than  they  are  at  present,  will  they  look  back 
on  the  criminal  trials  of  the  present  time  with  feelings  akin 
to  those  with  which  we  regard  the  trials  for  witchcraft  and 
the  inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages. 


Morality. 


The  death  of  dogmas  is  the  birth  of  morality.— Kant. 

When  will  the  time  come  that  men  shall  learn  to  see  that  the  sources  of  the  noblest 
and  most  elevated  actions  of  which  we  are  capable,  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
ideas  we  may  hold  about  God.  about  life  after  death,  and  about  the  realm  of 
spirits  ? — G.  Forster. 

Loving  man  is  the  only  true  way  of  loving  God.— L.  Feuerbach. 

AND  how  about  morality  ? This  is  the  cry  that  is  al- 
ready dinned  into  our  mental  ears  by  an  army  of 
moralists,  who,  after  trying  to  follow  our  argument 
up  to  the  last  point  referred  to,  are  now  ready  to  swoop 
down  with  all  the  theological  and  philosophical  appliances 
and  means  supplied  by  their  well  appointed  arsenal,  upon 
our  position  which,  in  their  estimation,  must,  upon  higher 
grounds,  be  considered  untenable.  Aye,  how  about 
morality  indeed?  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  ideas  of 
virtue  and  vice  if  there  be  no  supreme  and  supernatural 
powers,  no  heavenly  judge  and  avenger,  no  God,  no  re- 
demption and  no  future  life,  but  only  a blind,  inexorable 
necessity  of  nature  ? What  is  henceforth  to  control  the 
actions  of  men  ? Do  not  such  principles  and  theories  lead 
to  a dissolution  of  all  political  and  social  order  and  to  a 
bellum  omnium  contra  omnes,  a war  of  all  against  all,  in 
which  none  but  wanton  egotism  or  self-interest  will  be  ap- 
pealed to  in  the  last  resort  ? And  along  with  these,  a 
whole  array  of  other  similar  stereotyped  phrases  has  al- 
ways been  thrown  in  the  teeth  of  those  who  ventured  upon 
attacking  time- honored  prejudices,  which  by  their  very  age 
had  gained  an  iron  grasp  upon  mankind  at  large. 

(379) 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


380 

The  author  of  this  work  might  well  save  himself  the 
trouble  or  the  duty  of  answering  such  questions,  and  might 
declare  himself  unable  to  see  what  moral  consequences  can 
or  must  be  entailed  by  a theory  of  the  life  of  the  world,  which 
is  based  on  the  existence  of  a natural  order  of  things.  If 
his  theories  be  right  and  consonant  with  truth,  they  must 
be  admitted,  no  matter  what  results  may  ensue  therefrom  ; 
for  truth  stands,  as  no  one  can  seriously  dispute  high  above 
all  considerations  of  morality  or  utility,  and  cannot  be 
denied,  be  the  consequences  as  fatal  as  ever  they  may. 

Again,  in  speaking  to  those  who  contend  that  he  destroys 
everything  by  his  criticism  but  offers  no  compensation, 
the  author  might  confine  himself  to  repeating  the  admirable 
answer  made  by  Voltaire  to  those  who  found  fault  with  him 
on  a similar  occasion  : “What?  I have  delivered  you  from 
the  jaws  of  a wild  beast  that  was  devouring  you,  and  you 
ask  me  what  I will  give  you  in  its  place  ! ” In  just  the 
same  way  might  the  author  reply  to  his  critics  : “ What  ? 

I have  delivered  you,  so  far  as  the  present  state  of  science 
and  the  weakness  of  human  knowledge  permit  me  to  do, 
from  the  two  greatest  and  most  dangerous  enemies  of  hu- 
manity, viz.,  ignorance  and  superstition  ; and  you  ask  me 
what  I mean  to  put  in  their  place  ? Do  not  trouble  your- 
selves about  that,  but  leave  truth  and  science  to  take  care  of 
themselves  ; both,  as  has  been  shown  by  experience  thou- 
sands of  times,  have  never  done  man  any  harm,  but  only 
good.  What  they  destroy  or  break  down  on  the  one  hand, 
they  restore  on  the  other  a hundred-fold.  Besides,  it  is  in 
no  wise  conceivable  how  a fictitious  happiness  should  in 
the  long  run  give  man  peace,  whilst  truth,  though  at  times 
painful,  carries  her  own  remedy  with  her.” 

Such  an  answer  would  embrace  everything  that  requires 
to  be  said,  looking  at  things  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
author  and  of  his  work.  Nevertheless,  he  does  not  mean 
to  cast  the  onus  probandi  from  his  shoulders  altogether, 
but  is  fully  prepared  to  substantiate  the  theory  propounded 
by  him,  according  to  which  morality  and  the  moral  law 


MORALITY. 


381 

have  nothing  to  do  with  the  ideas  that  men  are  in  the  habit 
of  forming  of  things  supernatural,  but  that,  on  the  contrary, 
the  moral  law  can  pitch  its  tents  quite  as  well,  if  not  better, 
on  the  new  territory  of  a natural  order  of  the  universe  left 
open  by  science,  than  on  the  old  one  of  religion  and  of  be- 
lief in  spirits.  If  morality,  or  the  ethical  customs  and 
precepts  by  which  we  are  guided,  be  such  as  could  not 
exist  without  religious  or  ecclesiastical  coercion,  then  all 
we  can  say  is  that  they  are  worthless  and  ought  to  make 
room  for  better  ones.  But  in  reality  it  is  a fact  that  has  long 
been  placed  beyond  all  doubt,  that  morality  and  the  church, 
nay  morality  and  religion,  are  things  perfectly  independent 
of  each  other,  and  that  the  most  efficient  agencies  of 
morality  in  the  world  are  education,  training,  prosperity 
and  freedom. 

For  morality,  as  it  has  been  shown  in  a previous  chapter, 
is  not  innate  or  implanted  by  a higher  power  in  the  mind 
of  each  individual  in  the  form  of  definite  moral  precepts, 
but  it  is  acquired  by  long  practice  and  experience.  If  it 
had  been  implanted,  or  in  other  words,  if  man,  as  an  out- 
come of  the  Godhead,  possessed  an  innate  knowledge  of 
good  and  were  impelled  towards  it,  as  idealists  and  theolo- 
gians want  to  make  us  believe,  then  we  might  dispense 
entirely  or  to  a very  large  extent  with  all  other  premiums 
that  are  held  out  for  being  moral  — such  as  the  prospect 
of  future  rewards  and  punishments,  as  well  as  the  arrange- 
ments made  by  Society  for  the  prevention  and  punishment 
of  crimes. 

Nor  is  morality  the  outcome  of  religion  or  of  definite 
precepts  derived  from  faith  ; for  experience  has  proved  that 
the  most  religious  ages  and  nations  have  not  always  been 
the  most  moral.  On  the  contrary,  religious  fanaticism  has 
such  an  array  of  sins  of  commission  and  of  omission  to 
answer  for,  that  all  other  offences  that  history  tells  us  of, 
are  a mere  nothing  in  comparison  with  them.  Is  it  not  a 
fact  that  in  the  very  countries  in  which  the  Church  holds  an 
undisputed  sway  and  no  freedom  of  thought  is  tolerated,  a 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


382 

very  much  lower  standard  of  morality  prevails  to  this  day 
than  in  those  in  which  enlightenment  has  raised  its  victorious 
banner  ? We  know  moreover  that  in  the  atheistic  religious 
systems  of  a Buddha  or  a Confucius  the  purest  and  most 
unalloyed  morality  was  preached,  despite  their  atheism,  and 
that  unbelief  is  by  no  means  synonymous  with  immorality. 
On  the  contrary,  often  enough  religion  and  immorality  go 
hand  in  hand,  particularly  in  countries  in  which  the  priest’s 
absolution  lightens  the  criminal’s  offence,  while  atheists 
and  unbelievers  are  oftentimes  the  most  moral  of  men  ! 
How  many  philosophers  of  antiquity  believed  in  no  reward 
after  death,  and  yet  evolved  from  their  teachings  such 
maxims  of  morality  as  called  forth  the  admiration  of  their 
contemporaries  and  of  posterity  alike  ! 

So  far  from  morality  being  incompatible  with  unbelief,  it 
is  like  everything  that  man  possesses,  the  outcome  of  a 
long  series  of  acquirements  handed  down  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  depends  on  definite  natural  and  social  con- 
ditions ; it  is  therefore  by  no  means  the  same  throughout, 
or  semper  eadem  as  the  Church  of  Rome  calls  itself,  but  by 
its  very  nature  it  is  a product  of  growth  and  a thing  that 
changes,  — an  expression  of  human  knowledge,  which  pro- 
ceeds and  progresses  with  that  knowledge  itself.  What  we 
call  “ moral  feeling”  has  it  origin  in  the  social  instincts  or 
habits  which  each  human  (or  animal)  society  develops,  and 
must  develop  within  itself,  if  it  is  not  to  perish  by  its  own 
incapacity.  Morality,  therefore,  is  evolved  from  socia- 
bility, or  the  faculty  for  living  in  a community,  and  it 
changes  according  as  the  particular  ideas  or  necessities  of 
any  given  society  change.  Thus,  the  nomadic  savage 
thinks  it  is  a very  praiseworthy  action  to  kill  his  father 
when  effete  with  age,  whereas  in  the  eyes  of  the  cultured 
European,  parricide  is  the  most  horrible  of  all  crimes. 

Now  seeing  that  man  is  essentially  a social  being,  and 
can,  without  society,  either  not  exist  at  all  or  only  be 
thought  of  as  a predatory  animal,  it  becomes  easy  to  under- 
stand that  his  living  in  social  communion  with  others  must 


MORALITY. 


383 

have  saddled  him  with  duties  of  reciprocity  which  in  course 
of  time  developed  into  definite  moral  axioms.  The  begin- 
nings of  this  are  to  be  found  in  family  life,  which  in  the 
sequel  developed  into  tribal  and  national  life.  Morality  is 
therefore,  much  older  than  religion,  the  latter  being  only  a 
requirement  of  the  individual,  while  the  former  is  a re- 
quirement of  society  and  had  its  germ  in  the  earliest 
beginnings  of  social  co-existence.  Thus,  it  stands  to  reason 
that  morality  cannot  have  originated  in  religion,  but  is  en- 
tirely independent  of  it. 

It  was  not  until  a comparatively  recent  period  of  civili- 
zation that  the  two  became  connected  with  each  other,  and 
by  no  means  to  the  advantage  of  the  former.  For  it  may 
be  averred  without  fear  of  contradiction  that  religion  is  in- 
jurious to  morality,  in  so  far  as  it  assigns  to  it  an  aim  based 
upon  egotism  and  self-seeking,  whereas  pure  morality  finds, 
and  ought  to  find,  its  reward  in  itself,  so  that  it  may 
subserve  the  objects  of  Society  at  large  and  be  at  the  same 
time  a blessing  to  the  individual,  as  a member  thereof. 
The  original  object  of  religious  institutions  was  not,  as  has 
been  admirably  shown  by  E.  Bournouf  in  the  History  of 
Creeds , to  make  moral  or  virtuous  men,  but  merely  to 
afford  a simple  corroboration  of  the  metaphysical  or  super- 
natural theories  invented  by  the  ancestors.  Many  ages 
had  elapsed  before  the  different  churches  laid  down  defi- 
nite rules  of  conduct  for  their  members.  In  keeping  with 
this,  the  ethnological  researches  of  E.  B.  Tylor  have  shown 
that  the  moral  ideas  of  savages  never  and  nowhere  originate 
in  religion,  and  that  among  them  the  touch  existing  be- 
tween religion  and  morality  is,  as  a rule,  but  very  slight 
and  only  of  secondary  importance.  Wherever  morality 
and  religion  have  existed,  each  has  held  originally  its  own 
independent  ground  ; and  the  inculcation  of  duties  towards 
one’s  neighbor  occupies  in  the  history  of  creeds  a very 
much  later  stage  than  the  regard  for  the  wishes  or  com- 
mands of  a deity.  According  to  Tylor,  recognized  customs 
and  rules  respecting  the  relation  between  man  and  man, 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


384 

being  the  systematic  result  of  social  forces,  represented  the 
earliest  beginnings  of  an  independent  morality,  and  only 
at  a higher  stage  of  civilization  did  the  influence  of  religion 
on  morals  become  possible  and  perceptible. 

From  all  this  it  appears  very  plainly  that  customs,  and 
not  religion,  first  created  morality.  It  would  appear,  in- 
deed, that  the  former  have  at  all  times  rather  impeded  than 
promoted  the  latter,  and  that  customs  become  the  more 
firmly  rooted  and  the  more  powerful,  the  more  religion  is 
cast  into  the  background  and  the  less  the  individual  can 
hope  to  be  relieved  of  his  sins  by  propitiating  the  church 
and  its  ministers.  Besides,  religion  counteracts  morality 
and  universal  philanthropy  in  so  far  as  it  sets  men  against 
each  other  by  the  diversity  of  doctrines  and  theories  of  be- 
lief, thus  fostering  and  nourishing  the  worst  impulses  of 
human  nature.  Lastly,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
moral  precepts  laid  down  by  religion  are  mostly  antag- 
onistic to  human  nature  and  therefore  wholly  impracticable. 

It  is  obvious,  as  Pere  Meslier  has  shown  with  great  plausi- 
bility and  acumen,  that  a strict  observance  of  the  moral 
precepts  taught  by  any,  say  for  instance  by  the  Christian,  re- 
ligion, must  involve  the  ruin  of  nations  and  destroy  all  the 
bonds  of  society,  since  we  are  told  that  every  pursuit  of 
earthly  objects  is  incompatible  with  a Christian’s  care  for  the 
salvation  of  his  soul.  Besides,  as  a matter  of  fact,  no  one 
ever  takes  these  precepts  au  serieux.  “ It  is  not  an  easy 
thing  to  find  a courtier  who  dreads  the  anger  of  God  more 
than  he  does  his  master’s  displeasure.  A pension,  a title, 
a ribbon,  are  sufficient  to  cause  the  pains  of  hell  and  the 
joys  of  the  heavenly  court  to  be  forgotten.  The  caresses 
of  a woman  outweigh  in  every  age  the  comminutions  of 
the  Lord.  A joke,  a scoff,  a bon  mot , make  a deeper  im- 
pression on  a man  of  the  world,  than  all  the  most  serious 
conceptions  of  his  religion.” 

It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  the  fountain-head  of  all  good 
actions  is  not  to  be  sought  in  the  belief  in  God  or  in  mor- 
tality or  in  whatever  is  connected  with  them,  but  in  the  con- 


MORALITY. 


385 

viction  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  individual  to  act  in  the 
manner  which  is  recognized  and  defined  as  good  or  useful 
by  Society,  that  is  to  say  by  the  joint  union  of  all  for  mutual 
welfare.  Furthermore,  the  individual  does  the  right  thing 
out  of  regard  for  his  own  good,  his  own  advantage,  his 
own  fair  fame,  and  his  social  position,  or  having  the  fear  of 
the  law  and  of  punishment  before  his  eyes.  The  better  or- 
dained and  regulated  the  social  order  in  which  the 
individual  lives,  the  keener  will  be  his  own  desire  to  lead  a 
virtuous  and  moral  life.  To  this  may  be  added  the  moral 
instinct  or  the  spontaneous  disposition  towards  a moral  be- 
havior, a sort  of  moral  organization  which  each  individual 
receives  from  those  parents  and  ancestors  who  have  lived 
for  long  ages  in  more  or  less  orderly  social  or  political  con- 
ditions. If  to  all  this  be  added  the  powerful  influence  of 
education,  habit  and  example,  we  are  in  possession  of  all 
that  is  necessary  for  moral  behavior,  without  being  obliged 
to  have  recourse  either  to  an  innate  moral  law  or  to  the 
means  of  grace  or  the  hope  of  glory  held  out  by  the 
church  or  religion.  This  being  so,  what  is  the  good  of 
those  everlasting  hypocritical  confessions  of  faith  and  pro- 
fessions of  religious  dogmas,  which  are  opposed  to  reason, 
and  neither  required  by,  nor  conducive  to,  virtue  and 
morality?  It  is  not  the  fear  of  God  that  has  a moralizing 
effect,  as  is  most  clearly  shown  by  that  period,  replete  with 
the  fear  of  God  on  the  one  hand  and  of  moral  horrors  of 
every  kind  on  the  other,  which  we  call  the  middle  ages  ; 
on  the  contrary,  moralization  must  be  looked  for  in  the 
general  refinement  of  customs  and  of  social  habits  and  of 
views  of  life  in  general.  For  this  reason  we  must,  at  the 
present  time,  look  for  a basis  of  morality  very  different  from 
the  fantastical  and  unpractical,  out-of-the-way  belief  in 
things  supernatural  and  independent  of  Nature.  Science 
must  take  the  place  of  religion  ; and  belief  in  a natural  and 
infrangible  universal  order  must  be  substituted  for  a belief 
in  spirits  and  ghosts,  and  the  factitious  morals  of  dogmas 
make  room  for  a morality  suited  to  Nature. 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


386 

As  regards  this  morality  suited  to  Nature,  it  must  be 
clear  from  what  has  already  been  said  that  it  can  only  be 
based  permanently  and  durably  on  the  principle  which  gave 
it  birth,  viz.,  the  principle  of  reciprocity . There  is  therefore 
no  better  standard  for  moral  conduct  than  the  old  rule  laid 
down  by  Confucius  : “ Don’t  do  to  others  what  you  would 
not  have  others  do  to  you.”  If  this  negative  rule  be  sup- 
plemented by  the  positive  one,  ‘‘Do  to  others  as  you 
would  that  they  should  do  to  you,”  we  get  a whole  code  of 
natural  morals  and  ethics  in  hand  which  is  certainly  better 
and  simpler  than  can  be  found  in  the  bulkiest  treatises  of 
morality  or  in  the  quintessence  of  all  the  religious  systems 
of  the  world.  All  further  moral  directions  which  may  be 
drawn  from  conscience,  from  religion,  or  from  philosophy, 
are  entirely  superseded  by  these  simple  and  practical  rules  ; 
all  fears  of  the  contrary  become  groundless.  Of  course 
these  rules  must  become  the  more  efficient  the  more  highly 
the  feeling  of  reciprocity  is  developed  by  the  cultivation  of 
social  conditions  and  of  the  sense  of  right,  and  the  more 
the  individual  is  enabled  by  natural  talent,  education,  ex- 
ample and  habit,  to  contribute  to  the  objects  of  society  and 
perform  his  duties  towards  his  fellow-men.  It  is  therefore 
a fact  recognized  everywhere  and  demonstrated  by  history, 
that  the  moral  idea  is  developed  and  becomes  more 
powerful  in  every  respect  in  proportion  as  the  social  organ- 
ism progresses  ; and  accordingly  enhanced  public  order 
goes  hand  in  hand  with  a proportionate  alleviation  and 
toning-down  of  the  harshness  of  the  criminal  code.  For 
since  the  institutions  of  the  State  and  of  Society  compel 
the  control  of  the  crude  passions  and  impulses  inherited 
from  the  condition  of  the  brute,  the  individual  is  rendered 
by  inheritance  and  habit  ever  more  capable  of  living  ac- 
cording to  the  rules  of  moral  behavior  laid  down  for  him 
by  custom  and  habit. 

While  in  the  state  of  insolation  or  savagery,  man  pos- 
sesses no  other  moral  impulses  but  those  inherited  from 
animal  sociability  and  as  a rule  follows  blindly,  like  the 


MORALITY. 


387 

animal  itself,  the  promptings  of  hunger,  passion,  cruelty, 
self-interest,  and  so  on  ; his  moral  faculties  first  develop 
by  his  being  brought  into  communication  with  others, 
within  a society  ruled  by  certain  principles  of  reciprocity,  and 
by  the  recognition  of  laws  which  are  necessary  for  the  ex- 
istence of  such  a society.  Hence,  as  we  have  shown  in  a 
previous  chapter  — the  conceptions  of  good  and  evil  have 
nothing  absolute  about  them  ; they  show  on  the  contrary 
the  most  marked  differences,  according  to  the  diversity  of 
time,  place,  nation,  race,  stages  of  civilization,  climate,  and 
so  on.  After  all,  as  Hamlet  says,  nothing  is  in  itself  good 
or  evil,  “thinking  makes  it  so  that  is  to  say,  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  individual  has  of  himself  and  his  behavior 
according  to  his  idiosyncrasy,  which  is  ruled  by  internal 
and  external  conditions. 

Morality  may  therefore  be  defined  as  the  law  of  an 
equal  mutual  respect  for  general  as  well  as  private  human 
rights,  which  law  itself  has  for  its  object  to  provide  the 
largest  amount  of  human  happiness.  Whatever  disturbs 
or  undermines  this  happiness  and  this  respect  is  evil : what- 
ever promotes  them  is  good.  Evil,  according  to  this 
definition,  is  confined  to  the  degeneracy  or  the  excesses  of 
private  human  egotism  or  self-will,  detracting  from  or  over- 
riding this  universal  happiness,  as  well  as  the  interests 
of  the  fellow-man.  A human  society  attains  a higher 
grade  of  morality,  the  more  it  succeeds  in  reconciling  the 
egotistic  or  self-willed  tendency  of  human  nature  wfith  the 
interests  of  the  common  weal  or  the  collective  will.  The 
greatest  sinners,  therefore,  are  the  egotists,  that  is  to  say 
those  who  place  their  own  ego  above  the  interests  and  laws 
of  the  common  weal,  and  who  endeavor  to  unduly  satisfy 
this  ego  at  the  expense  and  to  the  detriment  of  those  whose 
rights  are  equal  to  their  own.  Of  course  there  is  nothing 
essentially  wrong  in  egotism  or  self-love  or  in  the  care  for 
personal  welfare,  which,  being  properly  directed,  may  act 
most  beneficially  for  the  individual  and  for  the  community 
at  large.  For,  after  all,  self-love  is  the  last  and  most 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


388 

powerful  motive  of  all  our  actions,  even  of  the  good  ones, 
for  most  good  actions  arise  from  compassion,  which  is  a re- 
fined description  of  self-love,  and  our  general  moral 
conduct  is  determined  by  considerations  of  individual  wel- 
fare and  has  individual  advancement  for  its  goal.  It  will, 
in  point  of  fact,  never  be  possible  to  completely  eliminate 
or  suppress  the  egotism  of  human  nature  ; therefore,  the 
one  thing  needful  is  to  lead  it  into  the  right  path  and 
render  it  rational  and  human,  by  seeking  to  bring  its  sat- 
isfaction into  unison  with  the  good  of  the  individuals  and 
with  the  interests  of  the  community.  Society  must  be  so 
organized  that  the  welfare  of  one  shall  no  longer  be  con- 
ducive to  the  detriment  of  others,  as  is  now  but  too  often 
the  case  ; every  one  ought  to  find  his  own  interest  in- 
dissolubly connected  with  that  of  all,  and  on  the  other 
hand  the  welfare  of  the  community  should  be  like  a mathe- 
matical function  of  the  welfare  of  the  individual.  As  soon 
as  we  have  reached  this  goal  the  attainment  of  which  is  by 
no  means  so  difficult  as  it  is  usually  represented  to  be, 
every  conflict  between  the  interests  of  the  individual  and 
of  society,  that  had  previously  sprung  from  motives  of 
self-interest,  must  needs  come  to  an  end,  and  the  chief 
causes  of  crime,  sin,  vice,  and  wickedness  must  be  removed 
at  the  same  time.  The  individual  will  then  find  it  much 
easier  than  at  present  to  seek  personal  happiness  and 
pleasant  emotions,  or  in  other  words  to  satisfy  his  ego  with- 
out injuring  the  interests  of  the  community.  He  will  only 
promote  his  own  welfare  by  advancing  that  of  all,  and  the 
general  interest  will  be  subserved  by  the  fact  of  his  own 
not  being  disregarded. 

In  this  reconciliation  of  the  interests  of  individuals  with 
those  of  all  others,  that  is  to  say,  of  society,  we  behold  the 
great  moral  principle  of  the  future.  If  we  succeed  in 
bringing  about  such  a conciliation,  we  shall  have  no  lack 
of  morality,  virtue  and  generous  impulses.  If  we  do  not 
succeed,  we  shall  be  deficient  in  them  in  the  precise  pro- 
portion in  which  the  distance  performed  falls  short  of  this 


MORALITY. 


389 

goal ; and  no  impact  brought  to  bear  upon  us  from  within 
or  from  without,  no  conscience,  no  religion,  no  moral 
preaching,  and  no  penal  enactment,  will  be  able  to  supply  that 
want.  The  public  conscience  is  also  the  conscience  of  the 
individual,  and  that  public  conscience  can  only  be  the  re- 
sult of  wise  political  and  social  conditions,  satisfying  the 
want  of  man,  and  of  a system  of  education  and  training  of 
all  founded  on  the  principles  of  universal  philanthropy. 
The  age  best  fitted  for  the  formation  of  that  conscience,  and 
consequently  of  all  morality,  is  youth,  which  is  so  well 
adapted  for  education  and  training  and  so  easily  influenced 
by  impressions  from  within  and  from  without.  The  chief 
task  of  public  and  general  education  must  therefore  be  to 
awake  and  strengthen  in  the  youthful  mind  the  tendencies 
and  dispositions  which  are  good  and  useful  to  human 
society,  and  to  counteract  and  suppress  those  which  are  in- 
jurious and  deleterious.  In  this  way  a new  race  will 
gradually  be  evolved,  whose  faculties  and  organization 
will  be  of  a higher  type  ; and  in  proportion  as  such  a new 
race  grows  up,  crimes,  sin,  vice  and  every  evil  disposition 
will  disappear  in  the  ratio  in  which  the  only  ground  suit- 
able for  them  grows  narrower  and  is  rendered  more  barren. 

If,  despite  of  all  this,  men  are  still  to  be  found  who  be- 
hold a danger  to  morality  and  propriety,  and  thence  to  the 
State  and  to  Society,  in  the  sacrifice  of  religious  or  meta- 
physical dogmas  and  in  the  diffusion  of  a belief  in  the 
existence  of  a natural  order  of  the  world,  directed  neither 
from  above  nor  from  without,  we  can  only  look  down  with 
compassion  on  such  ignorance  and  obtuseness.  Man  can 
only  be  a gainer  and  not  a loser  both  intellectually  and 
morally  by  the  spread  of  knowledge  and  education  and  by 
the  disappearance  of  superstitious  ideas.  To  refuse  to  rec- 
ognize this  is  to  run  counter  to  all  reason  and  all  history. 
Popular  theories  about  the  government  of  the  world  and 
immortality  may  change  or  take  whatever  forms  they  like ; 
human  society  will  not  be  changed  for  all  that,  and  will 
not  come  to  grief. 


390 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


But  if  our  view  should  not  be  wholly  accurate,  and  if  in 
reality  it  should  not  be  possible  for  the  human  race  to  ex- 
tricate itself  from  the  errors  and  prejudices  of  centuries 
without  thereby  coming  to  grief,  then  all  that  science,  and 
the  philosophy  of  nature  or  cosmogony  that  is  built  upon 
it,  can  say  is  that  Truth  (as  we  stated  at  the  beginning  of 
this  chapter)  towers  high  above  all  things  divine  and 
human,  and  that  there  can  be  no  arguments  strong  enough 
for  dispensing  with  it.  “Truth,”  said  the  great  Voltaire, 
“ has  inalienable  rights.  Just  as  it  is  never  out  of  season 
to  search  for  it,  so  it  can  never  be  out  of  season  to 
defend  it.” 


Concluding  Observations. 


Men  will  always  deceive  themselves,  while  they  abandon  experience  for  systems 
hatched  up  by  superstition.  Man  is  the  work  of  Nature,  he  exists  in  Nature, 
he  is  subject  to  its  laws,  he  cannot  free  himself,  he  can  never  even  rid  himself  of 
them  in  thought ; vainly  does  his  spirit  seek  to  penetrate  beyond  the  boundaries 
of  the  visible  world  ; he  must  ever  return  to  it.— Systeme  de  la  Nature. 

,(IT  is  now  nearly  twenty  years,”  said  Goethe  in  his  pos- 
8 thumous  writings,  “since  all  the  Germans  became 
Transcendentalists.  On  the  day  when  they  become 
aware  of  it,  they  will  certainly  appear  very  strange  in  their 
own  eyes.”  This  prophecy  has  been  fulfilled  ; and  more 
rapidly  than  could  have  been  expected  from  the  slow  pro- 
gress of  human  knowledge,  the  systems  of  ideal-philosophy 
of  the  post-Kantian  period,  which  had  been  ushered  in  with 
such  flourishes  of  trumpets,  have  outlived  themselves  or  have 
fallen  into  oblivion.  No  one  now  speaks  about  them,  and 
the  philosophical  characteristic  of  the  age  consists  in  the 
whole  host  fleeing  in  wild  confusion  and  seeking  a refuge 
behind  the  safe  walls  of  the  old  Kantian  theory  of  knowl- 
edge, or  rather  non-knowledge. 

If  we  look  for  the  reasons  that  have  brought  about  this 
remarkable  phenomenon — - doubly  remarkable  in  a country 
like  Germany  — we  find  that  one  of  the  most  powerful 
agencies  of  this  great  change  lies  in  the  gigantic  strides 
that  natural  science  has  taken  within  the  last  half  century, 
not  only  in  connection  with  material  but  also  with  intellectual 
life.  New  regions  have  been  opened  up  and  new  points  of 
vision  been  given  to  thought,  not  only  by  the  vast  dis- 
coveries and  inventions  made,  but  also  by  the  mode  and 

(391) 


392 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


method  of  investigation  brought  to  bear  upon  them. 
Thought  has  thus  been  compelled  to  quit  the  misty  and 
barren  regions  of  speculative  reverie  for  life  and  reality,  or, 
in  other  words,  to  adopt  a philosophy  of  facts  instead  of  a 
philosophy  of  words. 

“If  philosophy,”  says  Virchow,  “aspires  to  being  the 
science  of  the  real,  it  must  walk  on  the  path  of  natural 
science  only,  and  seek  in  experience  the  objects  of  its  study 
and  knowledge.  It  will  then  become  the  science  of 
Nature,  not  only  in  essence  but  also  in  method,  so  as  to 
become  distinguishable  from  it  in  nought  but  its  aim  ; 
inasmuch  as  nearly  all  philosophical  schools  have  a tran- 
scendental object,  viz.,  the  investigation  of  the  design  of  the 
universe  or  the  fathoming  of  the  absolute,  whereas  true  natu- 
ral investigation  pursues  concrete  objects  and  regards  the 
knowledge  of  the  character  of  the  individual  as  its  leading 
task.  For  it  has  learned  by  the  example  of  the  past  how 
fruitless  was  the  premature  striving  after  things  universal, 
and  how  hopeless  is  the  striving  after  the  absolute. 

From  what  has  been  said,  every  one  may  answer  the 
question  whether  natural  science  has  the  much  contested 
right  of  taking  part  in  the  solution  of  philosophical  problems. 
From  all  quarters  of  the  province  of  letters  we  now  hear 
the  cry  of  the  so-called  limits  of  natural  science , and  are 
told  that  science  as  such  ought  only  to  attend  to  the  sen- 
sual, tangible  world,  and  has  no  business  to  dabble  with 
the  metaphysical  or  super-sensual  world  of  theologians 
and  philosophers,  wherefore  all  attacks  on  theological  or 
philosophical  dogmas  are  in  limine  inadmissible.  Those 
who  utter  these  cries  are  only  repeating  the  dualistic  view 
of  nature  and  of  the  universe  that  is  based  on  a forcible 
separation  of  the  conceptions  of  force  and  matter,  of  God 
and  the  world,  and  of  thinking  and  being,  and  against 
which  we  have  been  contending  on  every  page  of  this  work. 
He  who  is  determined,  despite  all  experience,  to  cling  to 
this  view,  can  no  doubt  easily  overstep  the  boundaries  re- 
ferred to  and  allow  his  imagination  to  invade  regions  which 


CONCLUDING  OBSERVATIONS. 


393 


either  do  not  exist  or  else  are  inaccessible  to  our  intellect. 
He  can  fill  up  all  the  gaps  in  the  universe  or  in  our 
knowledge  with  gods  and  spirits,  demons  and  devils  ; 
he  can  imagine  a heaven  and  a hell  ; he  can  get  millions 
of  angels  to  dance  on  the  point  of  a needle  ; he  can  invent 
a spiritual  matter  and  let  it  fly  on  waves  of  ether  from 
star  to  star  ; he  can  believe  in  the  existence  of  beings 
with  four  dimensions,  in  speaking  tables,  in  every  kind  of 
spirits  and  in  the  haunting  of  ghosts.  For  behind  that 
which  is  closed  against  the  perceptions  of  our  senses  or 
our  means  of  knowledge,  any  conceivable  thing  may  exist 
for  those  who  do  not  shrink  from  the  transcendental,  or 
who  prefer  faith  to  knowledge.  But  they  can  only  perform 
these  feats  in  thought,  in  fancy,  and  in  that  which  is  tran- 
scendental, that  is  to  say,  above  nature,  not  in  that  which 
is  immanent  or  inherent  in  her.  He  who  rejects  empiri- 
cism, that  is  to  say  experimental  thought,  rejects  all  human 
comprehension  and  fails  to  see  that  human  knowledge  and 
thought,  without  real  results  drawn  from  experience,  must 
be  looked  upon  as  a non  e?is,  or  nonsense.  Thinking  and 
Being  are  as  inseparable  as  force  and  matter,  or  spirit  and 
body,  and  the  idea  of  thought  without  being,  or  of  an  im- 
material spirit,  rests  on  a mere  arbitrary  theory  which  has 
not  an  inch  of  reality  to  stand  on  ; it  is  a hypothesis 
floating  in  the  air.  Were  the  human  mind  endowed  with 
a metaphysical  knowledge,  independent  of  the  real  world, 
then  we  should  be  justified  in  expecting  from  metaphysicians 
the  same  conformity  and  certainty  of  views  as  exist  among 
natural  philosophers  on  the  law  of  gravitation,  or  among 
physiologists  on  the  function  of  a muscle.  Instead  of  this 
we  find  among  them  nothing  but  doubts,  and  contra- 
dictions, and  theories  of  the  most  widely  divergent  and 
often  diametrically  opposite  natures.  One  says  this,  another 
says  that  ; each  calls  his  opponent  an  ass,  and  if  bare- 
faced assertions  were  proofs,  we  should  be  compelled  to 
accept  the  most  contradictory  and  preposterous  statements 
as  demonstrated. 


394 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


“Everyone  can  see,”  forcibly  remarks  Vignoli  ( Die 
Intelligenz  irn  Thierreich , page  25),  “how  far  philosophy 
has  attained  to  certainty  up  to  the  present  time  with  regard 
to  its  ontological  speculations.  System  destroys  system, 
one  theory  contradicts  another,  and  doubt,  possibility,  and 
at  most  probability  rule  the  roast  ; there  are  as  many 
philosophies  as  there  are  speculative  heads  ! ” 

The  audacity  of  philosophers  in  metaphysical  matters 
contrasts  most  strikingly  with  their  affected  modesty  and 
reticence  in  empirical  matters  or  in  any  explanation  of  ex- 
istence based  on  scientifically  proven  facts.  Those  who 
were  in  the  habit  of  taking  the  most  extravagant  flights  of 
imagination  in  a supersensual  world,  suddenly  turn  to 
worms  creeping  in  the  dust,  whose  spheres  of  sight  and 
knowledge  cannot  reach  beyond  their  most  immediate  sur- 
roundings, and  are  not  even  sure  that  what  is  represented 
to  them  by  their  limited  sensual  world  is  certain  or  real. 
Hence,  what  man  understands,  is  confined  within  the  sub- 
jective perceptions  of  the  senses  or  an  appearance  behind 
which  the  ever  hidden  nature  of  things,  the  famous  “ thing 
in  itself”  remains  unknown  and  can  never  be  solved  ; the 
old  Socratic  axiom  is  once  more  adhered  to,  that  the  last 
word  of  wisdom  is  to  know  that  we  know  nothing. 

This  pride  of  the  “ know-nothings  ” is  as  unjustified  and 
unwarranted  as  the  pride  of  the  “ omniscients.”  It  takes 
all  inward  delight  in  scientific  search  away  from  thinking 
men.  Who  has  ever  doubted  that  human  knowledge  is 
limited  by  certain  insurmountable  barriers  ? But  does  it 
follow  from  this  that  we  must  leave  off  carrying  on  any 
search  into  existence  by  the  aid  of  our  senses  ? — for  other 
means  we  have  none.  Empiricism  or  experimental  philoso- 
phy has,  as  Lefevre  remarks,  as  good  a right  as  Idealism 
to  appeal  to  the  famous  axiom  of  Protagoras,  that  man  is 
the  measure  of  all  things  ; but  the  experimentalist  remains 
more  faithful  to  this  axiom  than  his  opponent,  since  he 
does  not  go  beyond  this  measure,  and  attends  neither  to 
“things  in  themselves,”  nor  to  the  “absolute,”  anymore 


Concluding  observations. 


395 


than  to  the  ever  insoluble  question  of  the  Why  ? He  con- 
fines himself  to  the  question  of  the  How  ? or  Whereby  ? 
and  collating  the  results  of  experience  and  observation  he 
limits  himself  to  derive  the  necessary  universal  conclusions 
therefrom,  while  the  metaphysician  attends  to  hypotheses 
and  theories  of  existence  which  are  incapable  of  proof  by  ex- 
perience. 

In  this  sense  and  from  this  point  of  view  ought  to  be  judged 
the  attempt  at  narrowing  the  province  of  natural  science 
spoken  of  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter.  Those  who  would 
make  such  a limitation  are  either  ignorant  of  the  utter  inad- 
missibility of  such  a claim,  or  they  follow  an  impulse  of 
instinctive  dread  lest  those  sciences  might  effect  a ruthless 
destruction  of  certain  opinions  that  had  hitherto  been  clung 
to  ; it  is  even  possible  that  they  deliberately  place  science  be- 
neath faith.  According  to  our  views  no  philosophy  that 
lays  claim  to  being  true  or  clear  can  exist  without  those 
sciences  ; they  are  the  essential  and  bitter  foe  of  ignorance, 
fanaticism  and  inanity  of  thought.  Any  discussion  of 
philosophic  problems  which  cannot  be  brought  into  unison 
with  the  results  obtained  by  science,  is  worthless  and 
senseless.  All  human  knowledge,  in  whatever  direction  it 
may  tend,  is  so  necessarily  and  indissolubly  interwoven  with 
science,  that  it  is  prima  facie  impossible  thus  to  break  off 
a single  branch  from  the  general  trunk  ; and  according  to 
the  views  of  distinguished  authors  all  philosophy  has  its 
basis  in  the  consciousness  which  empirical  science  gradually 
acquires  of  itself. 

The  boundaries  which  individual  naturalists  of  note  have 
lately  thought  themselves  obliged  to  draw  around  science, 
are  equally  inadmissible.  Science  knows  of  no  limits  save 
those  which  lie  in  its  own  subject,  and  there  can  be  nothing 
more  foolish,  than  to  try  and  set  ab  initio  permanent  in- 
superable bounds  to  human  investigation  — provided  it 
does  not  stray  into  the  province  of  transcendentalism.  For 
he  who  tries  to  do  this  can  never  pass  beyond  the  limits  of 
his  own  age  and  knowledge,  and  must  possess  the  super- 


396  FORCE  AND  MATTER. 

natural  gifts  of  a prophet  or  seer,  in  order  to  be  able  thus 
to  lay  down  the  law  of  the  progress  of  knowledge  in  days 
yet  to  come.  If  a thousand  years  ago  a savdnt  had  main- 
tained that  it  would  never  be  possible  to  fathom  the  nature 
of  the  sea-serpent  or  of  demons,  or  to  discover  anything 
definite  about  the  philosopher’s  stone,  or  perpetual  motion, 
or  the  nature  and  movements  of  the  stars,  or  the  creation  of 
the  earth,  or  the  descent  of  men  and  of  the  organized 
world,  there  would  have  been  just  as  much  sense  in  this  as 
in  the  talk  about  the  insolubility  of  many  ‘ ‘ problems  of  the 
universe”  with  which  some  people  try  to  give  themselves 
airs  at  the  present  day.  Only  as  far  as  the  final  cause  of 
things,  the  ultimate  Why  ? is  concerned,  can  such  a position, 
as  stated  heretofore,  be  upheld  ; but  it  never  can  in  regard 
to  our  investigations  on  the  intrinsic  connection  of  things, 
in  accordance  with  the  infrangible  law  of  cause  and  effect, 
the  How  ? and  the  Whereby  ? The  only  actual  limit  to 
our  knowledge,  as  Virchow  forcibly  observes,  is  ignorance; 
and  Wieland  lays  down  the  rule  that  whatever  we  can 
know  we  may  know.  The  enthusiasts  or  fanatics  of  know- 
nothingism  are  in  their  way  as  intolerant  as  those  of  faith, 
and  are  the  more  dangerous  in  that  they  know  how  to 
spread  around  them  the  deceptive  veil  of  objectivity,  whilst 
in  reality  their  pretension  at  trimming  is  merely  based  upon 
a contemptible  fear  of  being  taxed  with  atheism  and  upon 
want  of  the  moral  courage  required  for  consistent  thought. 
If  in  the  matter  of  religion  and  of  all  that  goes  beyond  our 
sensitive  knowledge,  nothing  remains  to  us  but  to  kneel 
submissively  before  the  shadow  cast  by  our  own  ignorance, 
we  must,  as  an  English  writer  remarks,  despair  of  knowl- 
edge and  deem  the  dead  hippier  than  the  living.  But  in 
reality,  if  we  look  at  things  in  open  daylight,  we  find  that 
the  “ Unknowable  ” of  modern  Agnostics  is  nothing  more 
than  the  good  old  God  of  the  theologians,  who  has  already 
made  his  appearance  in  so  many  deceptive  disguises  in  the 
history  of  philosophy.  It  makes  no  essential  difference 
whether  he  answers  to  the  name  of  “Will,”  or  “ Un- 


CONCLUDING  OBSERVATIONS. 


397 

known, ”or  “Thing perse,"  or  “ Universal  Soul,”  or  “Uni- 
versal reason,”  or  “ Unknowable  ; ” at  the  bottom  of  it  we 
always  find  the  same  anthropomorphic  disfigurement,  the 
same  asylum  igyioranticz  and  the  same  vague  being  which, 
being  begotten  of  the  fear  of  the  unknown,  ruled  of  yore 
over  the  crude  primeval  man  and  will  continue  to  rule  over 
the  civilized  man,  until  the  sun  of  knowledge  and  the 
recognition  of  a natural  and  self-contained  order  of  the 
world  shall  have  made  a reality  of  the  Fiat  lux  / 


Appendix. — In  the  earlier  editions  of  this  work  the  place 
of  these  concluding  remarks  was  occupied  by  a polemical 
dissertation  directed  against  an  attack  on  the  theory  of  the 
world  herein  explained,  which  attack  having  been  pub- 
lished by  a distinguished  naturalist,  a short  time  prior  to 
the  appearance  of  the  first  edition  of  the  work,  had  much 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  educated  world  and  called 
forth  many  replies.  This  dissertation  in  question  ran  as 
follows  : ‘ ‘ Every  one  who  knows  the  circumstances  of  the 
case,  must  regret  that  a man  to  whom  exact  science  is  so 
much  indebted  should,  under  the  instigation  of  morbid  sen- 
sitiveness, have  thought  proper  to  publicly  throw  down  the 
gauntlet,  to  the  mechanical  and  material  theory  of  nature, 
without  any  provocation  whatsoever.  No  doubt  it  was 
done  after  such  a method  as  is  usually  followed  by  the 
courage  of  despair  ; for  being  fully  qualified  by  positive 
knowledge  to  perceive  the  impotent  nature  of  idealism,  he 
himself  began  with  the  confession,  that  all  resistance  would 
be  useless  in  the  face  of  the  ever  more  closely  approaching 
and  more  threatening  foe.  But  he  did  not  attempt  to  con- 
tend against  his  invisible  and  yet  so  much  dreaded  foe  with 
facts  — for  he  could  not  but  be  aware  that  no  facts  were  at 
the  command  of  idealism  — but  by  a device  which  in  or- 
dinary life  is  usually  called  a ‘ ‘ false  charge  ; ” he  tried  to 
impugn  7iatural  truths  with  moral  consequences , a device 
which  must  be  set  down  as  so  utterly  unscientific  that  it  is 
hard  to  understand  how  any  one  could  venture  to  bring  it 
forward  before  a meeting  of  men  possessed  of  scientific 
training.  To  be  sure,  its  inventor  at  once  received  his  re- 
ward, for  the  disapproval  of  the  meeting  was  clearly 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


398 

betokened  after  the  lecture  had  been  delivered.  “The 
doctrine,”  exclaimed  Professor  Rudolf  Wagner,  at  the  last 
meeting  of  German  naturalists  and  physicians  held  at  Got- 
tingen, “ which  follows  from  the  materialistic  theory  of  the 
universe  is  : let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  shall 
be  dead.  All  great  and  earnest  thoughts  are  idle  dreams, 
phantasms,  games  of  mechanical  contrivances  running 
about  on  two  legs  and  with  two  arms,  which  are  dissolved 
into  chemical  atoms,  and  get  joined  together  again,  . . . . 
like  the  dance  of  madmen  in  a lunatic  asylum,  without  a 
moral  basis ” 

The  idea  which  lies  at  the  root  of  this  outburst  of  wrath, 
so  thoroughly  coincides  with  the  views  which  we  have  had 
occasion  to  controvert  in  the  preceding  chapter,  that  we 
may  well  spare  ourselves  the  trouble  of  criticising  this  false 
and  unfair  charge.  To  decide  that  a principle  is  untrue, 
because  of  the  consequences  which  foolish  people  may 
eventually  think  themselves  entitled  to  deduce  from  it,  al- 
though in  itself  it  is  proven  and  accurate,  is  certainly  both  a 
perverse  and  a mischievious  strategem.  “If  Herr  Wag- 
ner,” says  Reclam  ( Deutsches  Museum ),  “is  going  to 
accept  this  principle  as  a general  rule,  then  the  use  of 
matches  should  be  prohibited,  because  they  may  give  rise 
to  a conflagration  ; warrants  of  apprehension  must  be  issued 
against  locomotives,  because  people  have  before  this  been 
run  over  by  them  ; houses  should  have  no  upper  stories, 
for  fear  of  people  falling  out  of  the  windows.” 

But  the  idea  that  all  great  and  earnest  thoughts  will  be- 
come empty  dreams  because  of  the  adoption  of  a natural 
theory  of  the  universe,  and  that  on  that  account  the  future 
and  the  basis  of  morality  will  perish,  is  so  utterly  rash  that 
it  has  no  claim  to  serious  refutation.  In  all  ages  great 
philosophers  have  held  such  or  similar  views  and  yet  have 
not  become  fools,  or  robbers,  or  murderers,  or  despera- 
does. At  the  present  day,  our  most  earnest  workers  and 
most  indefatigable  students  in  the  province  of  natural 
science  hold  the  same  views,  but  no  one  has  ever  heard 
that  they  have  verified  Dr.  Wagner’s  apprehensions.  The 
striving  after  knowledge  and  truth  and  the  conviction  of 
the  necessity  of  social  and  moral  order  are  for  them  an  ef- 
ficient substitute  for  all  that  is  meant  by  religion  and  the 
future  in  the  popular  belief.  And  if  such  knowledge, 


APPENDIX. 


399 


having  become  general,  should  involve  an  increase  of  that 
striving  after  transitory  pleasure  which  has  always  been, 
and  still  is,  sufficiently  prominent  in  man,  we  must  com- 
fort ourselves  with  the  words  of  Moleschott  : ‘ 1 The  erro- 
neous theory  of  seeking  after  pleasure  will  scarcely  find 
half  as  many  disciples,  as  the  rule  of  priests  of  all  shades 
has  claimed  unfortunate  victims.”*  As  a last  resort  we  have 
the  right  to  cast  aside  all  such  questions  of  morality  or  utility. 
The  highest  and  sole  ground  we  stand  on  in  our  researches 
is  truth.  Nature  exists  for  her  own  sake,  not  for  the  sake 
of  religion,  of  morality,  or  of  man.  What  can  we  do  ex- 
cept take  her  as  she  is  P Should  we  not  lay  ourselves  open 
to  just  derision,  if  we  were  to  shed  tears  like  children, 
because  our  bread  is  not  buttered  enough  ! ‘‘Empirical 
investigation  of  nature,”  says  Cotta,  “ has  no  other  aim 
but  that  of  discovering  truth,  whether  it  appear  to  human 
thought  re-assuring  or  alarming,  beautiful  or  ugly,  logical 
or  inconsistent,  wise  or  foolish,  necessary  or  miraculous.” 
Could  a man  of  sense  really  wish  to  forbid  the  progress 
of  natural  science  and  seek  to  debar  it  from  taking  its  due 
share  in  the  solution  of  philosophical  problems,  on  no  other 
ground  but  that  the  final  results  of  such  investigations  are 
not  agreeable  to  himself  and  to  others  ? That  truth  is  not 
always  pleasant,  not  always  comforting,  not  always  religious, 
not  always  attractive  — all  this  is  as  well  known  as  is  the  old 
experience  of  the  almost  entire  want  of  external  or  internal 
reward  that  she  bestows  on  her  followers.  At  least,  this 
reward  stands  in  no  proportion  to  the  difficulties  which 
have  to  be  surmounted  on  the  road.  Externally  it  has 
ever  consisted  of  personal  danger  and  persecution,  wher- 
ever truth  has  come  into  contact  with  old-world  opinions  ; 
how  uncertain  its  internal  reward  is,  has  been  well  expressed 
by  an  ingenious  Persian  in  the  following  words  : 

“ And  yet  no  ; cast  away  the  mind,  break  its  fetters  I 
Be  a fool!  for  the  fool  alone  is  happy. 

Like  the  nightingale  near  the  rose  such  a heart  rejoices  eternally, 

For  it  has  escaped  thy  thorn,  the  torture  of  knowledge. 

Therefore,  blessing  his  God,  let  him  thank  fate 
Who,  blessed  in  error,  can  still  be  happy.” 

* As  far  a,  the  enjoyment  of  life  is  concerned,  we  only  differ  from  the  ancient 
world,  which  managed  very  felicitously  to  bring  its  principles  and  its  actions  into 
harmonious  concord,  in  so  far  as  we  have  within  ourselves  a contradiction  be- 
tween our  actions  and  our  philosophical  theory  of  the  world.  “ The  hypocrisy  of 
self-deception,”  says  Ludwig  Feuerbach,  “is  the  besettingsin  of  the  present  day.” 


FORCE  AND  MATTER. 


400 

To  the  poet  the  nature  of  things  appeared  in  its  last  sim- 
plicity, and  unshrouded  by  the  mass  of  external  additions 
\'ith  which  the  clear  voice  of  truth  has  been  rendered  unin- 
telligible by  error  or  calculation  to  the  greater  part  of 
mankind  : but  he  could  not  therefore  escape  from  the 
mental  unrest,  the  mental  pain,  which  is  only  conceivable 
by  those  who  have  passed  along  certain  paths  of  knowl- 
edge. He  rightly  accounts  him  happy  who  is  “ blessed  in 
error,”  but  he  is  wrong  to  tell  him  to  thank  his  God  for  it. 
Only  the  man  who  possesses  knowledge  can  regard  the 
ignorant  as  happy  in  his  limitations,  because  only  for  him 
can  the  pain  of  knowledge  exist,  whereas  the  very 
essence  of  error  consists  above  everything  else  in  neither 
understanding  nor  conceiving  the  error.  In  the  deepest  con- 
sciousness of  this  curious  fact,  and  perhaps  thinking  of  the 
soft,  dreamy  enjoyment  of  life  in  the  East,  the  Persian 
actually  claims  that  such  happiness  is  to  be  preferred  to  the 
restless  chase  after  knowledge.  Very  differently  does  the 
Western  world  feel  and  think  ; life  without  struggle  and 
activity  has  no  charm  for  it.  Truth  hides  within  herself  an 
intrinsic  charm  of  attraction,  by  the  side  of  which  all  other 
human  considerations  vanish  ; and  among  Western  civil- 
ized nations  there  will  never  be  a lack  of  enthusiastic 
disciples  and  followers,  regardless  of  consequences.  No 
prohibition,  no  external  difficulty,  can  for  any  length  of  time, 
block  up  the  path  of  truth  ; it  grows  stronger  under  the 
pressure  of  obstacles.  The  whole  history  of  the  human 
race,  despite  the  huge  mass  of  follies  which  crowd  upon 
each  other  and  form,  as  it  were,  an  unbroken  chain,  is  a 
continuous  proof  of  this  contention.  Even  while  in  the 
hands  of  the  Inquisition,  Galileo  uttered  his  famous  words, 
which  have  been  repeated  and  reverberated  a thousand 
times  over  : 

“ E pur  si  muove  ! ” 

(And  yet  it  moves  ! ) 


' 


{ 


lib  By2b*' 
Buchner 


4*5890 


Force  and  matter... 


ISSUED  TO 


118 


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